"Smoking section, please,"
He said huskily to the waitress.
Smoothly,
    Quietly,
        he saunters to the table,
        slides into the booth.
He wants his coffee hot,
    black as his soul.
His eyes meet mine.
We exchange pleasures unspoken.
"I only want one thing from you," he purred.
I know what he wants...
        twenty-five cents.
He leaves me -- alone.
Every second of his absence
Is suddenly an eternity.
He sits back down,
    two cigarettes clenched in his fist.
He places them gently on the table
    and stares at them wistfully.
The filter is too long to ease his suffering,
        his craving.
"Damn," he says, "they're just Lights."
I feel his pain
    and slide my butter knife across the table.
He takes it from me
    and begins to hack at the filter
        in the hysterical frenzy
            -- the obsession --
            of a serial killer.
I watch his dementia,
    knowing the ruinous truth,
    that I will only be his second love.
For I had not been blessed
    by the Marlboro.

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