After Buying a New Pen, I Recall The Old Chinese Poets

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The loneliness of raindrops in a dirty puddle
Skipped over on the way to buy cigarettes at Super America.

Those old Chinese poets that always see the world
Doubled in some sort of parallel reflection.

They never need a Marlboro bad as heroin
A drug introverts take these days breathing

Its dragon smoke deep into their shy lungs
And later, after a few months, the needle

More solid than air slamming it into the blood
Mixing with their very soul—their heart

Their brain, a needle tracing veins back
To the source. Becoming two things

The drug and the heart. The drug
And the brain. The drug against reflection

Of any puddle. The prick in flesh like a match
Lighted illuminating desire. I think, I’m glad

I never started smoking—I mean—because
I know I could never stop. The raindrops

In a puddle – it must be said because I looked—
Reflect, a light pole, a Buick, the curb, my shoes.

The only way to look is down. The old
Chinese poets know that puddles aren’t

Reflecting anything that could possibly be
Mistaken for an answer. That’s it

Just smoke curling like bus exhaust,
On seventh street, in early November.