White Plaster

You lie there, solid and firm,
as onlookers gawk and comment
on how good you turned out.

“They did such a good job,” they whisper,
like white plaster thrown on hard walls,
you just take it.

How you love to hold hands, but not your own,
the Rosary Beads d r a p e loosely across
spindly fingers, like pearl drops from tears cried dry.

In the bed you made, you lie cold,
a hard box unlike the feathery
mattress you once fell into.

The consumer, consumed by a toxic cloud of nicotine,
you are viewed; ravaged and still.

Oh, but for just one more breath of clean air.