Across balconies,
we greet in glimpses.
There’s new life in a carpeted
studio apartment.
My new neighbor, a girl,
a christened ship out of harbor.
Out on her own
with a small apartment, her own;
with a body well grown, her own.
She showers and in
warm pants of euphoric huffs,
steam spreads on her apartment’s
glass doors,
panes as wet as a
bus driver’s pants.
Her finger prints
paint streaks
and curves:
she’s marked, on her window a
message in moisture for me:
a heart.
Such a friendly smoke signal
wasted
on this savage.