a thin vellum of smoke drifts lazily
off a black cigar cradled in a crystal
Prometheus ashtray
its odor is pungent and spicy what you expect black to be
it wafts like an inversion a thin quivering jellyfish in a breathless
room and like a
confident tide it encircles the record player as Coltranes Blue
Train turns
a curious child stands beside the
record player
she ignores the adults who are
ignoring her and the smoke slips around her
crown like the sea laps at the
edges of an atoll
it falls across her shoulders and
drapes itself across her paps and spine
avoiding her face and throat
she looks like a grey nun a terrible benevolence etched on her
face
suffering not joyous
she fingers the wall in time with
Chambers bass
a drunken fat man her grandfather pushes past her and absently slops his iced
drink on the shoulder of her dress
she is oblivious
she has practised it to perfection
when the music ends
another record is not queued up
the adults are too involved to flip or
change it out for another record from among
the long row of bright jackets
she is too familiar and knows better
than to be patience for something that will
not happen
she turns clutching the cloak of smoke
at her throat and walks across the room
the smoke clings to her
she walks out through the tall sliding
glass doors onto fieldstone and onto a path
that leads into a flower garden
I followed her
and found her sitting on a raised koi
pond
fingering the water
ignoring the rising hungry fish
I could see them from where I stood
they were reflected off the silver
belly of the smoke that extended out from her
a spiraling axis as if she
twirled and danced among the brilliant flowers before
she sat
I have not seen anything like it since
0144, Sunday,
25 11. 12
