remetheus

It has been seven layers since the perforation
and since the first I haven't stopped staring into it.
Through the absence, my breath passes
curling a little into the delicate naked gaps where
each punctured edge is subsequently feathered
and what can I praise but the sound of moving through it
when, in my hands, an invisible cigarette still burns. When
from my hands, ashes drift, fingertips imitating
the slow disintegration of memory into smoke
and dust - the particles of my body suspended in pale -
ascends still alive to enter into heaven.