without you / sliver

I was 14, 17, 21 again
in your kitchen, 32 --
centre-storm, middle this afternoon
suggesting we
parachute
out into the wind --

how apt.
For in sealing the round of your mouth
over my
red, fleshy
20-something lungs
in the green we were again:
three nights not slept
four days not showered
a soppy vapid downpour
avocado and tomato
Ohope or Omaha, one of those
'O' beaches...
Oh, caffeine and sunrises
sunsets in our sunsights
consciousness and
consequences, feeling out those older
400-year
spirits

smoking so last life
and life-lasting, this lifetime
having held smoke
first: from life, then lungs (yours) --

and even if the space of atoms
insists on touching us
there's always a spare forty dollars
you just gotta find time