Smoke Cries

1

I run when I see the smoke

in your eyes—it’s the run

in your stocking that seems

like a nylon starting to cry.

And just when I begin to care

I’m smothered in your underwear.

2

On the clothesline the underwear

dances in chorus, I smoke

sitting here, trying not to care.

I can’t get up to run.

The bloody sun makes me cry.

Things aren’t what they seem.

3

Wind tearing open the seam

of the hillside.  My underwear

is in tatters.  One small cry

from the forest, a wisp of smoke

trembles where the tree line runs,         

birds on high without a care.

4

“So long,” she says, “take care.”

“You’re more sensitive than you seem.”

What’s that mean?  I want to run

out from under the face I wear.

It’s all illusion, just the smoke

of a dream, a staircase of cries.

5

What happened to the newsboy’s cry?

He felt as lost as a care

package.  Watching the actors smoke

in noir movies, they seem

to move through lives where underwear

is abandoned.  Along the sunset boulevard she runs.

6

I’ve forgotten how to run.

At the beach the seagulls cry,

missing their long underwear

in winter.  Don’t their mothers care?

In fog the streetlamps seem

like UFOs floating in smoke

Don’t forget to smoke and run.

Let them seem to see you cry.

No underwear?  No one will care.

©  2009   Phil Johnson