DAVID EGGLETON
Smoke
A burning wand wafts in plumes to be exhaled
in volcanic rush, smoke erupting from nostrils,
as if out of vents in the earth, only a devil’s dream.
Unrepentant, gathered down alleys to blow smoke
each other’s way: each cigarette marks time, ground
out like a coffin nail hammered to a coffin lid.
Each is weighty, a stoned idol, smoke issuing
from the mouth as swirls cast forth, containing
curative properties, powers to raise the dead.
Light my fire, give me a puff, and then burn
down the main drag: for the space of a smoke,
he was wheeling his helix towards eternity.
He smoked the Book of Genesis through prison,
page by page, and aimed a forefinger and thumb,
bang, bang, at the guards the length of his days.
He resembled a blackened smokestack city,
gritty of speech, burning tobacco at midnight,
in gardens of pleasure, till old with taste of ashes.
His smile crooked as a broke-down castle, he smoked
at warnings, the blighted gums and teeth on the pack,
his lower inside lip forever tattooed with Ake! Ake!