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.