Chase

There were twin buttock prints
in the flock sofas of the hookah bar
where I'd once seen you sit,
before starting, spotted,
and floating above the smokers,
a green cloud mistaken
for apple flavour tobacco.

The mist hovering
in a damp sash above the river,
part of that was you.
I double-took at a twist of jade fog -
the spectre of your torso -
and it splintered into water.

The exhibit at Audubon Zoo that day
seemed rather less
like papier mache and fairy lights
than normal, and more like a myth
on its tea break. To think,
I could have cuffed you.

Even the cemeteries -
jampacked ghost embassies -
were draped with miscellaneous spooks,
asking me the year, but no sign
of the grin, the sage smoke,
not even a snicker.

So how to find you now?
I' ve tried everywhere. Perhaps
that's been my error. I need
to give up, funnel everything
into my head and squeeze you out,
or run from you. Ah!
Here you are.