The Night You Smoked a Cigarette in the Rain

A poem for a friend

Photo by Anna Atkins on Unsplash

Someday
you’ll look back to this night
when you braved the cold of the rain
to inhale the warmth of a lit cigarette.

You’ve quit, you say.
But now you’re quitting what you quit.
Drenched in rain, sweat, and tears
you watch the smoke curl up
then pricked apart by needles of water.
You look at the tree ahead of you
soaking up the needles
and your sorrows.

The weather report says there’s a storm coming
but it’s only rain when you step out for a smoke.
Another disappointment, you think:
the excesses of a storm withheld from you.

So you produce a little fire, a little flickering light,
a wet cigarette stick.
Ashes gently fall
alighting on the grass
soaking in a puddle by your feet.

You wish to return to old vices, to old coping schemes
in the midst of howling winds and pouring flood.
Dramatic timing to mark…