Most mornings I wake up wheezing,
I know it’s no good, but who doesn’t love
the lightheadedness after a long hit, the singe
of paper retreating from flame, the exhale
and the brain blooming like a worked muscle.

I know it's no good, I tell her as she looks me down
with eyes that sing of hospice pamphlets
and fistfuls of hair corralled in the shower drain.

Some nights I dream of the dove-grey smoke
haloed around my own head, lips blue
as the deepest layers of a fire.