This December air freezes azaleas one night
and unfolds them the next.
My father and I avoid slick spots of ice
pooled in the cracks of the sidewalk.
The sky, swollen with stars,
behind our distanced outlines,
blots with orange city lights.
He doesn’t hold my hand, but a cigar
bought with the money we don’t have,
at that gas station, the one that hunches
beside the highway.
He willingly puffs what kills him,
the hazy clouds his only words.
I once asked why he smoked and a smile pulled
at the corner of his lips. He mumbled that maybe
he enjoyed the way the smoke curled
out of his mouth or that he liked when mother
snapped at him to quit smoking.
His cigars have blackened more than his lungs.
Embers drift in the air like winter fireflies.
The crystallized street lamps smolder
the thin air and choke the houses with light.
My father kicks at the frozen ground,
and my breaths hang like iced branches.
I taste rain coming.