Smoke

curls around his fingertips as he drags his hand through the air, swirling the nicotine cloud until it disappears, one foot on the ground and the other crossed over the knee of his faded blue jeans with flecks of white paint, wafts of rotting leaves and wet grass filtering through the open window as ladybugs cling to the screen with the hills a blend of orange and yellow and auburn and burnt sienna, the counter a seeping cold under my legs as my feet swing and he walks over to me, a cigarette dangling from his bottom right lip next to the small red crescent where I bit him last night, and his knees bump against mine and I blow smoke in his face, laughing as he backs away with a smirk, sunlight streaming in from behind a fleeting cumulus and hitting the cloud of smoke and lighting up my hair, and he stops, telling me I’m beautiful with the halo of leaves and sunlight and smoke and he takes a picture, sliding his phone back into a ripped pocket and taking my hands in his and pulling me up from where I’m sitting as we stumble towards a higher counter where he leans in and presses his body against mine, and I lean in and my hands find the nape of his neck and his hands wander to my waist and his cold fingertips brush my ribs under my soft grey marled wool sweater, and I smile because I’m drunk and high on an incredible, ephemeral feeling that I know will fade and end and that I’ll remember years from now when I marry my second husband because it’s convenient, and slip myself soft prescription pills at family dinners to deal with the repeated thoughtless actions that make up my life, when I sleep with the boss to get the promotion that will give me another sentence on my business card, and somewhere I’ll see his name or something like his name and that one autumn day will hit me and I will wonder if he remembers me as I remember him.