The sunlight shines through
the haze of cigarette smoke
which floats with bright
above the door to the Mexican restaurant.
It floats from the mouth of the man
playing slapjack with the mall security guard.
It hovers around his eyes
which crinkle behind his sunglasses
before drifting fifteen feet
to the tinder couple trying to spark something new,
after their last flames were snuffed out.
There is something caustic, harsh, and biting
about the smell of smoke.
It smells of life cut short, love ignored,
or at the very least like bad habits
and angry drivers venting their smoke.
But here the smoke twists round a sunbeam,
weaving itself with the Hispanic music,
voices laughing in Hindi, and every scattered conversation
to weave a rope of life, which though tinted with smoke,
is still tied to the joyful sun in her dance about the heavens.
