He offered me a cigarette from a gold case.
“Try one of mine,” he said,
and maybe didn’t mean the cigarette.

It could have been laced with psychedelics, but
his deal-striking face
by the blue flame he lit me with
lulled my terror of the monstrosity
it might become later—
the teeth with which he would tear at my inner thighs.

I watched the cherry crawl up the paper—
promiscuous death in her wedding whites.

-M.