Cigarettes

I remember when I was afraid of cigarettes:
the certainty that each one was killing
my father.
It was my struggle to make him see,
that they would take him
from me.

He stopped for seven years,
until his father died.
The news delivered too-loud
in a phone call from Greece.
Dad shouting to cover the distance:
he was so far from home.

He sat alone in our sun room that night,
listening to Theodorakis and crying.
A black and white photograph of my gandfather
and a brass ashtray at his side.
Fine smoke coated his vigil.

I tried to smoke fashionable cigarettes:
slim, white menthol fingers
redeeming my minutes
while I grappled with myself at the sea.

It took a year for the tobacco to take hold.
for the deep pull to reach my lungs
and soar into my brain.

A sacredness in my
pocket of personal smoke.

I tried to stop smoking
when a man said
it separated me from him.
And me from God.
For him I could be
a piece of nature.
A breath of fresh air.

I find smoking places: secret
on a narrow windowsill,
knees girlish close to my chest.
On a deep verandah,
starless quiet.
Before anyone else is awake:
gathering words for the day.
After everyone else is asleep:
remembering
and forgetting.



Mandy Leontakianakis
November 2008