Coffee and cigarettes
sociable vices
I don’t smoke, alas
but you look so gracious sitting at my table
that I can’t not inhale 

your secondary smoke
and something else besides
(pheromonal or otherwise primal)
or maybe it’s just the gray glitter
of something ashen silver

yet quietly smoldering
(too faint for any alarm now on the market)
behind your crudely sooty lashes
that sends shrill shivers ringing
in the sleepy shadows of my thighs