Just Smoke

The joke was perfectly timed, I thought.

A little story I had brought,

polished, keen,

a shining scene.

I built the tension,

sought attention.

The punchline landed,

soft as sand, did

nothing. The clink of glass,

the drone of talk did pass

right over me.

Invisible, you see.

My words, they floated, thin and gray,

like smoke that drifts and finds no way

to catch the light.

Just dissipated, into the night.

A puff of breath, a wasted sound,

unheard, on hollow ground.