The Smoker

I wrote this poem for a class this semester:

The Smoker stands in the yard, unaware

that she is watching him. She stares

and stares and lets her gaze

roam from cloudy fingers to grey face.

She knows him, knows him well

and wonders what other things he didn’t tell.

She hadn’t known he smoked.

The Smoker thrusts the dirty pack

into his back pocket. Black

charcoal stained thumbs and palms,

evidence of an artist with no qualms

against tobacco. Once a child who knew no pain

he feels like an old man standing out in the rain.

His sketches deny innocence.

The Smoker feels years of cigarettes

twisting, twirling pirouettes

in his lungs. With a tightness inside,

guilt and convictions collide.

He’s kept his secret, not wishing

her to love him less for puffing.

He thought she didn’t know.

The Smoker remembers the first time

He lit up a stooge and crossed that line.

Borrowed a butt from a woman once,

a woman from work whom he didn’t trust.

He’s never admitted

that he is addicted.

Yet he always keeps a pack close by.

The Smokers been bumming smokes for so long

he’s forgotten that she thinks it’s wrong.

It doesn’t matter anymore

what she thinks, or that they’re poor.

He loves the way ciggs stain his breath.

and thinks that they're the only thing left

that prove him an artist.

The Smoker smokes like a stick of incense,

He's a mosquito coil full of pretense.

He sprays himself with cologne before

returning inside, he starts his chores.

“Hey, mom,” he asks cheerfully,

assuming naïveté,

“What’s for dinner?”