"woman of the air (quality)" ( bellie, 2025 )

• ..

❝ on the day i swam in foglike smog

a woman poised on an outdoor bench

lifeline, a little stick betwixt fingers

huffing smoke like breathing air

as if she would die without its cancer

dear smoking lady

i wonder why you don’t abandon it

there is plenty of smoke in the air

or perhaps she is the smog machine

killing our cats and squeezing my lungs

maybe she is the cause but looks

at me with sunken eyes and i know

this is the end times still ten

coughing hours go by and i

wonder how she is going to die

by which kind of smoke? ❞