So Then

"So, you get up and pilfer a cigarette from your lover's pack, smoke it in blue moonlight. . ."

So, you lie awake beside a lover of many years,and the tabby cat kneads the blanket.You have only three days' leave.The furnace kicks on, a cold frontdescending from Ultima Thula,somewhere so far north your mothercouldn't name the frost. She couldn'tsing more quietly than those coldfingers you feel touch your thigh.

So, you get up and pilfer a cigarettefrom your lover's pack, smoke it in bluemoonlight pushing through the barekitchen window. Someone is listening.Someone knows the distancesyou keep in the dark folds of linen you don't bother to unpack. Someonesaw the smoke and ash.

So, you put on a recordjust for kicks, Sgt Pepper's, place the needlein the groove. When you were 16,you saw Neil Young & Crazy Horseat Cobo Hall, Detroit. Your parents thoughtyou had gone to church camp that week.The smoke hurts your throat and lungs,but the nicotine tastes like your lover.

So, you listen to the Beatles and smoke.You think about the first horseyou ever rode, the first dogyou ever shot. You think about threedead buddies. You think about the timeyou left five new-mint quarters on the stonetongue of an angel, her chipped wingseclipsing the Mississippi sun.

So, you stay up late, though you mustget up early. You stay up latebecause you know your heartwill explode if you stayin that goddamn bedany longer.

You know this.