dEFIANT rEASON*

She kept her thoughts in a casket with a bird’s foot and an ostrich feather. The man in the hat awoke to a sky blistered with rain, smoke trailing from a half-spent cigarette left smoldering in the ashcan. He scooped his hat from the floor; weevil-wood cursed with scuffing, and re-lit the nub of the cigarette with a struck match. He smoked in defiance of reason and common sense, the bellows of his lungs heaving, breastbone cockling rib-stays.