Through smoke -
Per fumare.

Through perfume
prayers rise:
on earlobes, wrists,
crooks of knees,
from cut glass bottles,
atomised through air,
smeared from
stoppered flasks
prayers are sent
outwards.
Through Givenchy,
through Cinnabar,
through Shalimar:
Return my calls
Visit soon
Leave your wife
Think of me
Stay with me
Make me smile
Restore my looks
Keep me young
Marry me.
Through perfume and
through smoke
prayers rise.

And the sending is
more valid than the
answering for those
who purge their
helplessness in
the rising of prayer
through perfume and
through smoke.

This poem is inspired partly by patrick Susskind's novel of the same name and partly by the derivation of the word meaning 'through smoke'.