I never could smell smoke, not on your sighs
or greying drifts among the ceiling beams.
You'd slip out, say you watched Orion rise
or got the mail. And if your finger seams
were daffodiled it was a trick of light.
And if your windshield clouded it was dirt
from uptown plants. The way you coughed at night?
Those damned dust mites make everyone's lungs hurt.
I miss that me. I miss the girl who took
artistic lies and built a bright museum-
to sit in and admire the slyest rook-
now razed to make room for an athenaeum.
Julie Bond
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/smokescreen/
