Cigarette Conversations

Matthew Xu

Do you remember that night?

That dusk that was supposed to be

dawn? Time doesn’t often forget itself

like that.

We sit at the stop waiting:

for a bus that never

comes, for a world that

doesn’t move,

for a future that wants nothing to do with us.

I am the first to burn. A gentle gesture

brings your head closer to mine.

Our cigarettes kiss, breathing into each

other that same spark of life.

Mine squishes a bit on the way back.

Four mother tongues make

two worlds apart

overlapping in one tangent moment

held together by palpable will and

desire.

Pulled out of time; endings and

beginnings that don’t match.

Leave it to the fates to patch the pieces

together. That is not our job today.

Instead we build, shelter ourselves against

the encroaching cold with exhalations that accept

oblivion

and inhalations that dream of rebirth.

Hiding within this frozen moment,

spill all your secrets

and I will mine,

with the kiss

of embers still on our

tongues.