for Chelsea
Most mornings I wake up wheezing,
I know it’s no good, but who doesn’t love
the lightheadedness after a long hit, the singe
of paper retreating from flame, the exhale
and the brain blooming like a worked muscle.
I know it’s no good, I tell her as she looks me down
with eyes that sing of hospice pamphlets
and fistfuls of hair corralled in the shower drain.
Some nights I dream of the dove-grey smoke
haloed around my own head, lips blue
as the deepest layers of a fire.
Eddie Krzeminski is an MFA candidate at Florida International University where he is the poetry editor for Gulf Stream magazine. His work has recently appeared in Origins, Yes Poetry, and Small Orange. In his spare time he reads, writes, and plays bass in two bands.