Loitering/a life in cigarettes

Tarrytons were sweet, Lucky strikes; harsh, Pall Malls; edgy.
Hank blew perfect rings, popped them with an angry finger.
Sam shot pool with a Winston shoved in his missing tooth.
Tidy package: hard pack, soft pack, litany of unwrapping,
strip tease of cellophane, tamp tamp on your wrist.
Cigarette as noir: the buzz, the cloud, the fume, the fog;
a dark alley, lipstick-stained filters.
The first pull, heavy-headed, almost toppling, smoke drunk.
Mindy’s in a clasp purse, lighter tucked.
Florrie dealing solitaire, squinting away from the blue stream.
Carlton tasted like nothing, Kools, mentholy green.
Feet stamping at the bus stop,
cold shivers/warm smoke, anxious plume to the sky.
Desire mapped from stomach to head, down through the heart,
hands cupped over a struck match, the equality of longing.
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;
huddle of girls in the upstairs bathroom, one minutes ‘til the bell, -
hand out, two fingers waving,
an inadvertent peace sign, Can I have a drag?
Tough girl says, Don’t steam it.
Anna slips one in her bra, Sandy in her make up case.
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
Firey tip in the dark brightening, weakening, brightening.
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, behind the bowling alley,
cutting through the empty field, past the gas station.
Your brother outside the drug store, under the no loitering sign,
collar up against the future.
Crouching in the dark garden below the noise of your parents’ TV,
staring up at a hazy moon: sneaking a smoke.
Glow of a car lighter, flick of filter out the butterfly window,
sparks bouncing on the highway behind you.