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.
