A Bouquet

by me

The cigarette burned through tobacco

like a factory burning through oil; a smoke stack

sixty feet high polluting the air.

Then through the opaque fog you

see a smile break through and

a voice emerges, something low, deep and slow

reminiscent of two rocks being scrapped together.

The beauty of the voice though,

a flowing reality of the beauty of life, 

is that despite the sound, despite the sound 

of nails against a wash board of chalkboard

amplified through a soundboard,

despite a screeching halt, words mean something nonetheless.

Words are the poetry, they are a tapestry

of meaning, an array of colors built on 

boun-cing syllables.

So… here in my raspy voice, on the

backs of croaking frogs I offer you this bouquet 

I’ve made of letters and punctuation,

wrapped in context with a simple note, quote unquote:

I love you.