Le Cafard Poem by Foster Blaine

It comes at first like
the joke you didn't quite get
but must laugh at anyway
for the sake of your smile.

It returns the next morning
like church bells above your bed,
the lover you've banished before
with the keys you loaned out.

It burns the afternoon like
the wind steals cigarettes.
The evening's shot too and now
there's a life to be lived abed.

Its phone number's your own
and when it calls the ringing sounds
something like too many similies
contained in one poem.