We blew smoke back and forth
on your porch all the way to the end of June.
One night you quietly ran your cold fingertips
down the length of my hair and across my shoulder blade.
With your cracked hand still resting on my freckled back,
I heard you pull in a deep breath
as if you were about to say something
dripping with significance.
Instead you leaned your head backwards and
blew smoke rings up at the flickering porch light
surrounded by moth wings beating hard towards the brightness.
Their shadows danced quickly across the
rotting wooden floorboards of our decaying bodies.

I folded myself carefully on the steps of the only house
I ever felt truly at home in.
I was hiding my sharp edges
for the moment at least.
I listened to your deep, heavy laughter.
It was as thick as the smoke
you blew at me for fifty years.
That laughter still bounces off
the walls of your now empty house.

That summer we were sprawling words thick with good intentions
across each other’s sidewalk-hearts. They were erased
by the sweat and thunderstorms that came with the passing of time.
They do not last until the leaves fall.
You do not last until the leaves fall.

A month later you finally let go.
I had become familiar with the clean tile floors of a small hospital.
I had counted the fifty-four paces it took to run
to your bedside from the elevator.
And I had grown to hate the smell of flowers mixed with formaldehyde.

When I got back home,
I broke an ashtray filled with dried moth wings
in your kitchen sink.