The dream dreamt again and again, not
recurring, not the same film screened,
but the recurring theme of returning,
the distinct feeling at a turning,
the climb climbed before, without
gasping, I recognized the characters
in these lighted windows, their Limoges,
the scent of their perfumes, their holocausts
of fragrant smoke.
Dark sloughed
from tiled roofs like snow from laden boughs;
dead moths feather the streetlight’s tarred foot—
crushed cigarette butts.
The lips
where they lived, briefly flamed and smoked,
the scuffed heels that snuffed them out.