Smoking, 17 Years Old

The darkness molested by the
pollution of city lights and
street lamps blazing through the
summer night hung low over
the pond — we called it the
puddle — and there we sat,
near the edge of the murk, in such
stark contrast to the relative
order around us, illuminated in
sharp blacks and whites like in
those old movies.
Cigarettes hung loosely from our
lips, smoke poured and streamed
into a poisonous plume,
in a smooth and sophisticated way –
as we fancied ourselves to be –
silently pondering the existential and poetical,
smoking cigarettes at seventeen.