we are standing on the only balcony that ever was
in the whole sordid history of balconies
and things that happen atop them
and you are smoking, god forbid,
smoking,
after years upon years of deliberation
and teeth-gnashing, straw-chewing
try and scratch that itch but god knows,
you never will
the filter’s in your hands
too quick for anyone to stop you
and your inhaler’s on the counter inside
turning your head, you do this all the time
taking the edge off even though
there’s no edge around you
exhaling through the boundaries of sconce-light
considerate as fuck
and then pass it
the air’s orange-yellow and there’s nothing outside it
and the air’s thick with it
the air’s stale grape rot
i joke about doing it wrong
chewing the cig like dip, swallowed like
what you’re not supposed to do with chewing gum
then, in a few years,
tobacco fields ripe in my stomach
and the soil turned lung-black and fallow
Nic Hinson is an undergraduate student of English and philosophy at The University of New Mexico, and a burgeoning small-big-city-town creature-thing. They have been writing poetry since they learned to write and just recently began writing poetry they like. All of their work is partially credited to their cat, Nutmeg, for her supervisory role.
