I always find myself smoking in the cold eventually.
I remember sleeping on the living room floor,
as close to a space heater as I could manage,
without setting myself on fire,
the heat isn’t on yet,
the heat isn’t on,
winter winds in drafts around the door,
waking up in sleeping bags and sweat.
same, same as camping.
it happens, I know,
but I’ve never seen lightning in a snowstorm,
I’ve never seen plasma vaporize flakes and crack my ears open.
rubbing hands together in my breath,
blanket between me and the granite bluff.
paper towels snatched from the restroom burning on the roll.
we’re all blanket shawled and smoking,
hand-ground, fingerpacked, piece passed back ‘n back again.
how many fires have we started up here in the night–
the only, only poem I wrote on Setraline,
I wrote covered in Malboro stench on the back patio,
in the middle of the night so my mom wouldn’t see–
– the only part of Christmas I remember clearly.
now her father has lost his prostate to cancer,
and bladder, and everything he thought made him a man.
from two packs a day to none in the course of one very bad week.
I smoke at midnight to keep her from worrying
the same call will come from me.
the only part I remember clearly;
it helps, it helps, it helps.
Huddled up close, using the peice for warmth,
can’t tell if it’s smoke or just our breath,
save for the coughing.
I’ve never seen lightning in a snowstorm,
the cold is so quiet,
so deep.
teeth chattering, fingers numb.
Dyan Thomas “Do not go gently–”
Robert Frost “and I have miles to go before I sleep–”
quiet and slow.
“dark and deep”.
light another and listen.
this is the calm,
the absence of storm.
