I’ve been breathing in perfumed smoke
all day. I want to grind up the jasmine
and ram it down my throat on a cloud
which shivers and splits, plunging deep
into my lungs.

In the wet air, I get hungry,
uneasy, reading books full of animus
and malice, getting grieved,
dead sweetness in my mouth,
the whole sidewalk gowned
by little wet magnolia’s tongues.