Angel face with a careless fringe of dark hair.
Ivory skin, clean unpolished nails, false eyelashes.

Between thumb and index finger, she holds
a spliff, inhaling and inhaling, as she sees the rosin

box, smells sweat flung from a spinning head,
hears the shush of a shed tutu, the clop of pink-

ribboned shoes flung across a wooden floor.
But today, neither her head nor her warped toes

feel pain. She cannot, will not, shall never,
she reminds herself, tending the ash, inhaling yet

again, as she vows to seek out debauched putti, like
ones on old Italian fountains, only full-fleshed

and alive. Her spliff, you see, is sending a smoke
signal inked on its side and disappearing:

SORRY MOM . . . .