Cotton Candy Ghosts of the Pier

like a late summer bee diving into a bowl of pollen

He's outside smoking beyond the thin

curtain

framing him, bridal, in the gauze of just-before-night

ecstatic blue, blazing almost neon

before thundering into black

lit ends of cigarettes as lighthouse

beacons beckoning, warning

those are scuttling, tearing rocks

His mouth is full of them

a graveyard of

stumbling blocks

a velvet viper poised and coiled

In the coals of his nicotine fired

chest there is diamond dust

that glitters up into his eyes

when he holds something, tightly,

that should not be held

and takes whatever he can get

His hands on

leaving skin flush-painted

off-brand signs

on a hasty carnival ride