he lit a cigarette
in the elevator
which is just a metaphor
for the shock, a rupture
in etiquette, the sudden
dumbfoundedness by the rest of us
caught staring at a social contract,
broken, or maybe at ourselves
realizing for the first time
we abided by something together all along,
silently, until the striking of a match.

---

writer & thinker living in Amherst, Massachusetts