smoking lessons

The Protégé

The fire burns brightest at noon,
its smoke moves at speed across
stranded houses, through windows
open or closed, through sunlight,

across streets and into a room
where you lie at the soft pedals
of your silent piano, letters
and trophies strewn over the floor.

Smoke drifting at a speed too fast
for drift, travelling to grass, wood,
concrete; streets of soot smothering
the lungs of all who are out,

whispering in a strangled classroom,
a place with no air where sameness
is taught and learnt by teacher, pupil,
caretaker, where small chairs sit, stained.

Crows cough, couples discard clothes,
release blunted limbs from tight binds.
Wisps curl around lampposts, lick
at doors, sweep under arches,

into my room through a skylight,
swirling off mirrors to remind
with highlight the scars from the hot
weight you pressed into my arm.

I look out over rooftops,
wood and concrete, sharpness dulled
and softened by sooty tongues,
midday saliva-dew on the grass,

to the fire I lit at the bandstand,
where you played with burning release,
and behind, to the sun, not rising,
not setting, the slowest strobe I’ve known.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009