Those Ashes

Up to the frescoed ceiling
The smoke of my cigarette
In a sinuous spray is reeling,
Forming flower and minaret.

What delicious landscape floating
On perfumed wings I see;
Pale swans I am idly noting,
And queens robed in filagree.

I see such delicious faces
As ne’er man saw before,
And my fancy fondly chases
Sweet maids on a fairy shore.

Now to bits my air-castle crashes,
And those pictures I see no more;
My grandmother yells: “Them ashes—
Don’t drop them on the floor!”

R.K. MUNKITTRICK.