Queer Love Poems Day #1: Not Having a Smoke with You by Lillie Craw

Not Having a Smoke with You

Lillie Craw

“o god it’s wonderful

to get out of bed

and drink too much coffee

and smoke too many cigarettes

and love you so much”

is what I’ve written on your hand

while we are sitting in bed

feeling only slightly depressed

about being a tranny and his lady

in the world today.

I stole it from Frank O’Hara

who I’m reading on our ordinateur ancienne

while you are reading a book

you heard about on NPR,

National Public Radio.

Speaking of French

(and not just in French)

I would be lying if I said

I don’t think you’d be any more handsome smoking Gauloises.

So I say

I think you’d be devastatingly handsome smoking Gauloises.

What we are doing now is called parallel play.

You know that without me telling you,

and I learned it at college where

I studied sociology

for several

semesters.

Perhaps surprisingly,

I did not cultivate my interest

in Gauloises through my time at school,

but rather through my unfortunate affinity for

Roman Polanski

films.

You can be an artist without being tragic

and I can be a poet without loving you for it.

Taking T makes smoking doubly unhealthy

and I know you know,

but no.

They have not done longitudinal studies.

Find more of Lillie’s poetry at ediesmom.tumblr.com