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I smoked for about 5 years
1/4 pack a day, maybe 1/2 at most
when a pack had 25 cigarettes
(so 7 to 13, never more)
and cost about $5.
I stopped in my early 30s,
so haven't smoked in 20 years,
and never thought of myself
as 'a smoker' and that's important,
somehow. For those who do (or did,
think of themselves)
a pack of cigarettes
is a pocket-size calculator
keeping track,
marking days
before or after quitting,
like BC/AD,
or like a punch-clock card, a pack
keeps an hourly schedule,
a smoke with your morning coffee,
at break-time, after lunch, and so on.
Smoking defines you in ways
few things do, you're a smoker,
a non-smoker, or once-smoker;
my dad was a smoker,
a 'Craven A' man,
a pack-and-a-half-a-day man
all his life till the day he died,
but smoking didn't kill him,
other things did,
and that's how he knew,
he could tempt fate,
and that all things considered,
he was pretty lucky in life.
Mom smoked too
but wasn't devoted like him,
only half-a-pack, and quit
when they divorced,
the marriage run its course.
Dad taught me
in the way he smoked,
how a man looks
when he loses himself in love, eyes closed
drawing in, exhaling, slowly,
like he's praying,
smoking is like meditation,
you concentrate on every breath.
Dad would cross a border
just to buy a carton at the duty-free.
He was at ease
when he smoked,
did his best thinking
when he smoked,
couldn't be touched
when he smoked.
I tried to be like him,
for a while,
then around the time
my first child was born,
I realized I couldn't
and actually didn't want to
be like him,
AD, after dad.
4 comments:
You might enjoy "The Best Cigarette" by Billy Collins.
But your poem is really more about your dad than about smoking, per se. I enjoyed it.
Re-think, perhaps, though, the line "Dad was committed". It had me thinking something other than what you intended.
Thanks for the help Kelp!
You're a poet ... you know it!
I remember my mam smoking a " Craven A" after lunch, very rarely though, only on Sundays.
As for me, I've only smoked around 2 or 3 am when I was in a nightclub somewhere in PARIS or in a ski resort and, of course I can count on one hand how many times I've smoked a cig... One fact is sure : I hate night clubs!
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