The awakening of the last puff
Bumbling to gather itself along the rocks
After leaking from the gap of an old man’s teeth
His body neglected with shoulder length hair
Like salt and pepper strings
The creases of his face being carved out by years
Of tears fleeing from his eyes
Not even a look back
As they slide off his chin to their deaths
A fate he would eagerly accept
The finished cigarette still seized between his pointer and middle fingers
The same demon he’d been promising to squash since the birth of his daughter
That promise seemingly pointless
When time had made him unrecognizable to her
Not much of the saving kind
No hidden S beneath his formally white shirt
But his lack of hesitation as he dives off his perch on the dock
Might make a person take a second look
With a slicing stroke that carries him to a bobbing destination
Left blind to any other eye
Heaving the small body onto his shoulder to lay her out upon the sand
As water sputtered from her thin blue lips
She was watched by weary eyes
And when he bends forward to kiss her shaking head
Time gives him a gift of a split second of erased mistakes
Getting up to leave her in the hands of parents
Cursing themselves for distracted minutes
He bows his head to pray
If only his years were minutes