Improv 11.a

Cigarettes are like regrets
they burn the tray in which they lay
though things we've lost have yet to fade
and unlike ash flake not away
the tray someday -- it could be cleaned
no wash away the memories
of her and her voice, what's left
is but an urn upon the shelf

And of the burn it has in turn
no days past for which to yearn
nor do sins of yesterday remind
those who've died, those left behind
it's someone else whose pity felt
as due as it was true, what else
What could one do if it was true
Every girl since then, since when
she washed upon the shore
and I return and think, in turn,
it might have been much more.

But that is life, some live, some die
we're thrown upon the shore to lie
in the sun until, when done,
the waves like slaves by day they come
and take us with the tide
it takes the strong, it takes the weak,
the queen by regicide;
and below the ants in tow
in service to the lie
made slaves by circumstance, a chance
to look into the looking glass and see
descending children of the Sea