Watching Old Movies
Watching Old Movies
We former smokers gaze with interest as
the Zippo lighters flick and matches flare
and flames touch tips of cigarettes and bowls
of pipes filled to the brim with burley flake.
Is this, we ask, the fifty-seventh take,
to get the light-up right? When Cooper rolls
a smoke and licks the paper, we’re aware
what major-star dexterity he has;
when George Raft and his party at the jazz
club wreathe themselves in Cuban-leaf-thick air,
we sense they’re tainting all the room’s mink stoles;
when John Wayne tokes, we know it isn’t fake.
Tobacco use belongs in black and white.
We’re still in need there, asking for a light.
- Login or register to post comments
- Email this page
- Printer-friendly version