that we'd become smoke

that we’d become smoke

I could burn the taper

of a flame

for every hour

we wasted

and the whole world

would be masked by

titanic waves

frozen and entrapping

millions in a turtleneck

of wax. Nobody,

he’s dead. and all the rest

entomb Nobody’s body

in the clearest crest

and when we gaze at

No One contorted across his tomb

I think of us

and your desert cracked lips

so I rub my fingers

along Nobody’s sepulcher

until the pads are moist

and slather my own thin mouth

because I cannot reach across

from where I am stuck, waist deep

in front of Nobody,

to slap it on your face.

Instead we should forget

that we were wicks

that we were still

that we were tall and slender

that we believed to burn

to be intoxicating enough

that we’d become smoke

that we’d float among constellations

and laugh when we looked up

Orion’s manly skirt.

But we melted with the wax

and are stuck

pretending to ignore the other

though each our flame shines

brightest. 

©2014 Lex Vex