My Last Marlboro

My last Marlboro

It was no royal duchess, nor a viscount nor even prince albert rolled like

dusty lambwool from familiar rust painted tin

But just the old standby, grim reaper-lean cowboy astride his well hung stallion,

white & red box with tall black letters, flipped open

& inside the remainder of 20 tobacco soldiers on end, no longer tightly packed

but still sick sweet smell exuding in the instant before good judgment can awaken.

I hadn’t smoked in years. No longer the searing veil once acquired purposefully,  

a screen of stench & lies between us, a way of delaying appetite,

a test to ensure that pathos could  overcome common sense & you would love me anyway, the worst habit.

I’d picked it up as a child w calculated concentration, learned self taught but  proper mannerisms, hands like Daddy’s cupped in the wind, squinting,

one eyebrow raised, determined double barreled exhale like a slow motion Pamplona bull; it was from his dark desk I’d stolen the first ones I tried to inhale.

But after decades I’d let go of it.  No longer any need to shock or stun you,

to prove myself as tough as any gunslinger, some shy new desire

for true acceptance as casual as sand

overcoming  the frosty fortress of former belief that I needed no other friend. 

No compulsion for something to do w my hands, I learned to eat my own cooking and that I loved the real taste of food, I’d kicked that stinky sad

companion to the curb, no matter how loyal and compulsively

I’d kissed him all those years.  Sure, I banked off slow, having loved too much

to go cold turkey, found lesser friends in menthol kools & exotic turkish camel lites,

slim sophisticated shermans as subtle as cinnamon sticks, rivals

promising more mellow tastes, lower risks, & yes I taperered off

for never had I found another who could deliver

satisfaction sweet as the nasty snarling smirk of him, my Marlboro,

w his manly smell, the rich pervasive odor that ruined all my clothes.

That evening, I’d been at another AA meeting when you said something

in the group just to get a laugh. It pissed me off so bad. I had to go outside

and there I found another person

in the cold night air also nursing wounded feelings,

quiet, saying nothing to me nor looking up

Just silently proffering that open pack. I took the smooth and silky cigarette and accepted the glowing bic flame, inhaled between my lips and drew in deep.

Felt  shame & gratification instantly down to my toes & all my anger die down deep,

Felt sweet nothing. Then I noticed it felt bad & tasted wrong  & my reflection in the plate glass window looked absurd. I said to myself “self—he is not worth it,

Anymore.” I ground the Marlboro half smoked beneath my heel

looking down as if to memorize. And from that moment twenty odd years ago to this, I did not look back  to hear your song, or even to recall your name.

Odd, even that this smoky morning in october,  suddenly,  I did.

Chinook

The wind blows fog off distant rivers, unveils the sun

blown in by breezes from a warmer place beyond the sea

carrying birds back home in flocks that fly formations

to our valleys from the coast.

Here in town we luxuriate deliciously in this surprising gentle gift

climate aberration in a region

where spring is normally three cool months of rain and silver showers

in a day suddenly gone unseasonal,

sensuous sweet warmth shining through the brown and bony arms

of trees still skeletal and mostly leafless,

under blue skies boldly bright as any day in june.

This year it’s late, coming in mid-march, to greening chartreuse hills

that harbor hidden yellow knots of daffodils,

and crocuses peeping shyly but predictably  from under rocks.

Normally it might be february were it to occur at all.

Never a sure thing, skips more years than we wish to recall

this irrational and temporary spell, celebrated

by  pretty college girls appearing bikini-clad and buff on balconies,

smelling strongly of coconut and vanilla

the syrupy song of saxophones blaring from open windows

over glorious galloping guitars

during daylight hours

children with their mothers or their fathers reveling noisily together

on squeaky schoolyard  swings,

elders sipping minty ice teas on shaded café patios,

daring each other to get some sun. Chinook’s a sweet and short-lived  thrill,

like puppy love or any other,

half the insane unspeakable joy of it

our unspoken suspicion knowing this can’t last,

is certainly unsustainable and wrong, must be tasted,

that buds that dare to bloom now may lose their later perfect promised fruit,

but knowing now that this is just as good as living on this planet ever gets,

we savor this like lemon drops that melt to nothing in the mouth

there is no joy as crazy nor spell as sweet

than the magic of this freak false spring,

Chinook.