I LOVE CIGARETTES

Jon and Joan, smoking

I LOVE CIGARETTES

In the ashtray of my mother’s car
Lay my first cigarette, bent
At the filter with a lipstick scar.
The black everpresent omniscient scent
Thrown over the world like a cape
Was cold and stale that day I pushed
The lighter in. I was an ape
Staring at the burning coal. I rushed
To inhale, not knowing that the first gust
Is like burning pitch, that the lungs explode.
Those days I pine for now, those days of must.
A pack a day, twenty blows of the goad
And I’m on my way, yes sir, I’ll serve,
As my mother did who died at 88
Drowning in smoke. She beat the curve.
But me, I quit, who knows, too late.
Anyway, if they ever find a cancer cure
I’m on that line over there the one with the lure.