I smoke because it is
morning. I am awake.
I sit on my lover’s porch blowing plumes—
Or it is my house—
no one may criticize me there.
I am
twenty-five feet from any doorway,
and legally I may smoke.
I am determined
to take any meager sanctuary this world offers.
I smoke because some men
are all hype and marriage is a dead-end.
Twenty years ago,
my husband bankrupted us—
my religion bound me to his creditors.
My child was hungry.
Where was god then?
Angry—
I smoked.
My friends used to smoke.
We French-inhaled,
blew rings,
pontificating existential absurdities—
cigarettes punctuating points.
Now none of my friends smoke.
I smoke to be left alone.
No one likes a smoker.
I write and smoke.
In every dream,
in the spider webs draped above my door,
there are beauty-filled poems
I am too inadequate to write.
Who am I, if not a bad writer?
My daughter visits—
she reminds me of her father,
how leaving him meant I had abandoned her.
I smoke for her grief—
and mine.
When she visits, we smoke away the shame
of our separation.
I drop a pack on the counter.
A sink full of dishes
is book-ended with deep drags.
At work, I keep a pack on my desk.
I stall. I smoke.
My supervisor calls—
I smoke.
Before presentations,
after interviews and meetings,
I steady my nerve.
My mother smoked when she was
pregnant—
Every night, my father
smoked cigars and drank beer.
Smoking is my birthright. It is my
meal of porridge.
It is my inheritance.
It is the only thing my parents
ever gave me.
