In Praise of the Cigarette
Margaret covets my pressed plywood
Rocking chair. If I sell or if I die before
She does she wants it. It’s an attractive
Chair missing some of its ornamentation,
But not its overall charm. She will sit
In it on her verandah and rock and smoke
A cigarette and smoke a cigarette and rock.
She keeps track of the traffic on Sight
Point Road “You wouldn’t believe
The number of cars.” Marg is eighty-three
And on the verge of having another
Cigarette. When fresh out of the womb
Her father greeted her and said, “Here
Ya are, Margaret. Have a smoke.” He died
Smoking, in his nineties, and she has never
Not smoked. We bring her cigarettes from
The Duty-Free whenever we cross the border.
“It’s not the cigarettes that causes all the cancer
In Inverness. It’s what they eat.” What does
Margaret eat? We ask her. “What I really enjoy,”
She tells us, “Is a big plate of onion rings
Smothered in gravy. That’s good. An onion
Is always a healthy thing.” She tells
Of Bill, an old friend, a biodynamic farmer
From Las Vegas, New Mexico, who owns
The land once was her Alec’s farm. He suddenly
Refuses to bring the cigarettes. “Was here
The other day,” she says. A look of disbelief,
And scorn on her pretty face. “This time I saw
Only a white bucket on my verandah. There
Was something in it, red like tomatoes, a yellow
One too, but they weren’t tomatoes. I took the fuckin’
Things and threw them off into the bushes.”
Margaret derives her nutrition and good health
From cigarettes embellished with onion rings
And gravy. She will smoke a cigarette
And rock in my chair. She will rock in my chair
And smoke a cigarette and smoke another cigarette.
