Smoke

The shadows of smoke linger
as if trapped in the invisibility of white
on white, its intolerable lightness
clinging on walls as we breathe

signals of distress;
vapors that conjure up

instances which take place
only in haze:

Once, I was told to possess 
an otherworldly suaveness. A man
spoke of my vampiric demeanor
"How your passion is so remote.."
His surreptitious glances
caught my strident stare.

Some ghostly smoke
swathed his eye,

divulging a dark apparition
from my soul.

In my projections

where misery is withheld

and appearances are pied,

my breath extinguished the

flowing folds of smoke--

Whose hands fanned
the scarlet cinders

beneath? Why
are we burnt?

 For Niño