Sockless

and feeling the chill

of a slight September breeze

blowing across the vacant

church’s lawn, through

the tall trees that cover its blank

windows of now soulless celebration

like an autumn sheet

with browning leaves adorning the pavement,

I light a cigar in the last

sunshine that I shall see today

and breathe in a seldom ritual

to escape the craving of chocolate,

of the bounty of gluttony

that has swelled

my disposition over forty years;

one habit to replace another,

the church lays empty,

rotting from the inside out

as I feel the strength to whisper

to the stars and the clean smoke;

I shall succeed.

Ian D. Hall 2016