Tarrytons were sweet, Lucky strikes; harsh, Pall Malls; edgy.
clipped from your mother’s bag, father’s ashtray.
your day’s goal: find a smoke.
Cigarette as prop: Hank blew perfect rings, popped them with an angry finger.
Sam shot pool with a Winston shoved in his missing tooth.
Cigarette as accessory: Mindy’s in a clasp purse, one in Anna’s bra,
Sandy in her make up case.
Jane, lids low, demonstrating a French inhale.
Florrie dealing solitaire, squinting away from the blue stream.
Cigarette as noir: the buzz, the cloud, the fume, the fog.
a dark alley, lipstick-stained filters.
Carlton tasted like nothing, Kools mentholy green.
Feet stamping at the bus stop,
Cold shivers/warm smoke, anxious plume to the sky.
2 quarters in the bowling alley vending machine.
hard pack, soft pack, litany of unwrapping, strip tease of cellophane.
Cigarette as desire: mapped from stomach to head, down through the heart.
The first hit: smoke drunk, smoke stoned
Almost toppling, OMG, gimmee another
Marlboro tucked behind your uncle’s ear,
pea coat with tobacco shreds in the pockets
Camel with specks stuck to your tongue.
Cigarette as hiatus:
between lips, between teeth, between lines, between classes,
a huddle of girls in the upstairs bathroom, one minute ‘til the bell, –
your hand out, two fingers waving,
Can I have a drag?
Tough girl says, Don’t steam it.
Cigarette as siren song: giving up, giving in, giving way.
Jeffrey smoked on a skateboard, clumping over the broken sidewalk,
Tony on a stingray bike, high handlebars, butt clamped in his mouth.
The vocabulary of smoke: smoldering S’s open O’s
Ars poetica Ars smoketica
There go your friends down haypath road,
Fiery tips in the dark brightening, weakening, brightening.
Cigarettes as piston: pump pump. Hand to mouth
Row of filters pushed into the grass, tiny soldiers at attention.
L&M were stale, Kents; metallic, Salem a patch of rough lawn.
The geography of smoking: back streets, back seats,
past the neon gas station.
Your brother outside the drug store, under the no loitering sign,
Collar up against the future.
Cigarette as secret: Crouching in the dark garden,
staring up at a hazy moon, Sneaking a smoke.
Cigarette as escape: Glow of a car lighter,
flick of filter out the butterfly window
sparks bouncing on the highway behind you.
Photo by Julia Engel on Unsplash
Published in Threshold 2026