Double Dippin'

Until I can produce some original Triad material, I suppose I can stick up the writing of the semester that relates most directly to you fellows:

How to Be a Casual Smoker

Do it only when dark runs deep enough to make the cherry matter, let the glow

look like a funeral for a firefly, like a pyre.

Smoke when the streets are singing love songs to the traffic that won't come, smoke like the

last Marlboro man who doesn't know he's out of time.

Don't stand; sit on steps, or stoops, or stain your white washed denim lime and lie in un-mown

grass, make strangers' yards complicit in all your ploys.

Breathe. Stunt your breathing. Now, drink in the contradiction, see those Kamel Reds burn up

and brighten 3 a.m—barren of all but boys.

Do it even though you've never known addiction, do it like a crossword puzzle:

curled up and cozy, wasting/fighting/killing time.

Flick the ash without aiming, let your dust lie where it settles, say a secret prayer

that it might find the strength to start a minor fire.