If you were things and not a person

You would be a Polaroid photograph

Of black construction paper punched out stars

On a Friday night in the chaos and humidity of

A New York City summer in 1973 on a scalding concrete rooftop

Buzzing a top thousands of neon lights

Ants fanning the heat away below

With Times Square in the back ground looming and smilingly dangerously

And the center of the picture is a fresh unopened pack

Of Lucky Strike cigarettes lying flat on a tiny antique wooden coffee table

With multicolored legs

Next to a silver butane lighter engraved

Je’ Taime Belle on the spine of it which can be seen through the fingers holding it

A brown hand

A woman’s hand

A finger hole cut out leather gloved hand

Red finger nails gripping the lighter

A top a clean crystal ashtray

With an empty bottle of champagne rolling towards the edge of the roof

Ready to jump.