His face was refreshing like Violet Gum, but
the pockets of my throat would bet him as indigestible.

I was thirteen when I discovered
the surgeon general’s warning

tattooed in the fat of Victor’s chest. Smoke
hanging like eaves from the roof of his mouth.

Not to be confused with the smoke of his father’s violent
Guns left unattended for play, and protection in his drug habits.

Nixon lied when he said that
defeat doesn't finish a man.

His curiosity was only deposited further
by his absent mother’s abysmal spills.

I thought he was clean the summer we met;
He had sang of sobriety particularly well.

But while the cicadas left their shells and warned me
to return home, I was begging him to break my sheltering.

Because I loved that night. I loved him,
I loved him that night.