Raspberry Sorbet

April Gompers

A girl with lips the color

Of raspberry sorbet

Takes a drag of her last cigarette,

Or so she says.

She dips a small wand

Into a barrel of soapy liquid, 

Reflecting her face in rainbows,

And her raspberry lips form a kiss

As the wand lifts toward her face.

She blows her smoke into an expanding bubble.

And it slides on the surface of the wind.

I am enraptured by the way

She combines her innocence

With her sin.

Creating cloudy spheres of soap

That float away and explode

Like a foggy memory.

They evaporate, and so does she.

She is vague and misty

Like a crystal ball,

She knows the future.

She knows that her

Sparkling, perfect circles

Will fall away to the sky,

And become part of the atmosphere.

But in her mind, they’re already gone.

And she has followed them,

Resigned to non existence,

She dissolves slowly
Until all I can see
Is her silver smoke breaking free

From its transparent shell.

And she smiles.

Vicariously all-knowing,

With lips the color of raspberry sorbet

Waiting for the sun
To help her melt away.