You drew, quite adeptly I might add,
a comparison between me,
(or your thoughts of me)
and the billowous smoke drifting,
softly flowing,
from the flame charred nostrils
of some old dragon.

I would, if you’d allow such a poetic
intrusion, add some minor details
(As I enjoy the image immensely).
The first is that the dragon be a figment,
a glimpse of mountainous countryside
conspiring to be, from one angle,

A dragon of momentous proportions,
its nostrils the dual chimney of some familiar
house, its occupants keeping some stoic
dream alive, stomachs slightly less full of
asceticism, feet full of soles. The dragon’s teeth
an old picket fence, a relic to an outdated

conception of “living” and perhaps that
scaly plaque at the center of its forehead
is not armor, as I would have insisted
in those years prior to our meeting,
but is rather a patch of dense forest
not yet explored  by tiny pittering feet,
not yet absorbed by the eyes of children.