Smoke Thoughts

I take a deep pull

letting the smoke fill my lungs,

imagining how it looks from the inside.

It’s wispy and fluid,

circling ’round, getting into the crevices.

Out again it goes,

not quite as artistic.

I can’t make a boat or

rings like some of those fancy smokers.

I hold the cigarette between my fingers.

Delicately, it’s a fragile sort of thing.

So’s life though, you know?

My lips wrap around the end,

take in another drag.

This time I think of the hands that

pulled the tobacco leaves.

Calloused and raw. Maybe greying

from the ash and dust.

I think of the guy’s family,

the people he’s pulling these things for.

Got mouths to feed, bills to pay.

I think of the fingers that rolled this pack.

She’s got rough fingertips

from pressing the wrapper together.

Bandana ’round her head,

she can roll real fast.

Who does she go home to after all this?

I imagine she ain’t got much,

but what she’s got she’s proud of.

Worked hard to get what they got and keep it.

It’s a good sort of thing,

to work for something, earn it.

Thinking of people like that

makes me proud.

Like we’re connected by

something that we’ve got.

This cigarette’s connecting me to them.

I’m appreciating their work while

I’m taking a break from mine.

It’s a neat sort of feeling,

kind of surreal.

And lonely.

I’ll never know their names,

their faces.

Or their struggles.

Just me and this cigarette

sitting here in the night air.

Guess I’m strange to think on

a thing so much.

Maybe it’s a good thing.