Smoking in Bed

Months of illness
from which you could not recover,
bled dry by the succubus, the handsome stranger
who came to your bed each night
keeping you awake to keep him company
as he smoked in the half-darkness,
drunk, listening to the Eagles, Bob Dylan,
whoever…To hear any of those songs again
is to lie there coughing
week after week until
finally you told him straight
to put out his cigarette,
knowing you might die before
he took the hint.
His look of disbelief
is what you have to thank
for the long slow roll of amusement
that washed over you—
amusement it would not, at the time,
have been wise to express—
leading you, despite your stupidity,
by the nose out of all that misery.