Doppelgangrenous

[novapsyche]

"For a girl my age
only orgasms offered competition."
The tired slackjawed redhead
leisurely sipped
on her lipsticked Seven and Seven.
Glass against ice recalled windchimes.
She tapped hot fuzz
from her jaundiced menthol.
The second-hand tendrils
wrapped themselves
in bounceless, razor-straight bangs.

"What I didn't figure
was the way a habit
worms its way into a person.
There's a shame, being in the snare
of a high no longer worth
black ash in the back of my throat."
Her raccoon eyes
were testimonials themselves:
collosal rings of black-gray liner,
smears of dead charcoal.
I sensed her astral self
genuflecting to her cigarette,
the ashtray an altar
for her abject burnt offering.
In my peripheral vision,
she could be seen bowing and retreating
unto infinity.

"Part of me is afraid
this stuff will have a hold on me
from beyond the grave."
Click! I finally placed
her North Carolinean accent;
her chipped nails spoke
to the rouge landscape of her youth.
An offhand laugh from her,
as if she'd all at once understood
a redundant Zen koan.
"This puny, puny thrill
still compels me."
Her loose chambray shirt
reeked of bitter sacrifice
with every arm motion.

"Nicotine's not scary anymore."--
the voice of an intensive care patient
resigning the will to live.
My vision clung to her dishwater hands
as she stood and collected her effects.
One last drag, one smash
on the paint-kissed butt.
A last long suck
of her Seagrams and Seven.

I offered psychic ablutions
as she moved past in departure.
For a moment, she turned back;
she eyed me, mid-flight.
The addict in her
found in me a mirror,
a simple innate knowing
what few moments provide sincere peace,
that sense of uncomplication
only abstention lends.

9/20/01