how we are and are not like cigarettes



we're no butts stubby and ash-ended 

to be ground beneath a hard-heeled shoe

& we're not any lost cigarettes layin' under leaves unlit

to swell and rot, no, not us.

we're half-smoked in a fast car,

consuming ourselves in the open window rush -

then the wristflick shower of brief ecstatic spark.



11/89