Sometimes,
when I pass a smoker
……………….on the street, I breathe in deeply because it reminds me of you.
……….I imagine wisps of smoke floating through my windpipe and passing
Into my lungs like a phantom,
………………………………a ghost phasing through alveoli to capillaries, saturating
my bloodstream with your memory.
I hold
my breath,
……………..keep you inside me until it hurts, until body overrides mind
…………………………….and forces me to release you, to exhale your spirit
as carbon-dioxide
………………………………dispersed back into the air as an invisible puff of smoke.
***
Alexander Radison is an MFA candidate in poetry at Queens College, where he also teaches creative writing. His work has appeared in various literary journals including Utopia Parkway, Newtown Literary, The Violet Hour, The Coachella Review, and at www.laborarts.org, where he won the “Making Work Visible” poetry prize.
Armstrong Literary 