Ni Laughed
I was drinking from a bottle of tea
while smoking a cigarette
with Ni at a little bench near the window
that we sometimes used as a table.
I was nodding off
the cigarette in hand had burnt a small hole near the neck of the plastic bottle.
You could see perfectly through the new hole.
I picked it up
and slowly turned it sideways,
hoping to see the stream of tea like a clear line jet from the small hole . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . nothing came out.
The cigarette
had not burned all the way through,
only the colored plastic label that wrapped the bottle had been melted.
I looked at Ni
who had also been nodding off
and said, "look, a tea hole" – Ni laughed and laid on my lap.
