Relative

The ashtray is a heavy, green-tinted hunk,

left in a box of his old-person junk.

I hit my knuckle on the chipped, jagged rim

and got a sudden, sharp memory of him.

The nicotine film is a sticky, gold stain

clinging to glass like a pattern of rain.

He’d hawk in the hallway and rattle the latch,

waiting for someone to find him a match.