You ask it of me 

and I seldom find a reason to refuse you.

In those three minutes, 

watching you suck smoke 

through the burning roach

of your finished fag,

I remind myself that

if I do love you, 

it was an accident. 

When you ask for this,

you never push or angle.

In fact, you don’t know how,

and your skill-less earnest is

so loveable that it 

irritates me.

Games and agendas perplex you 

and I wonder what it must have been like 

to have asked and received so freely 

you’ve never had to learn.

In those three minutes 

I make castles out of the empty tinnys,

kick fish-like into a handstand 

tear rivers through burnt out cigarette butts and 

sift through your kindness 

for one ounce of malice 

that I could use to get free of this 

unrelenting closeness 

that holds me to you, 

for just three minutes more.