Thursday Word Play with Ray: Cigarette Casket

Do you smell the yellow Marlboro 100’s?

I do; I smell them in every city grate I float atop

In every bar I find myself in

In every sewage green Chevrolet Suburban

In this entire bottom of the boot-shaped state

I find the smell I crave so aggressively.

I relished the black tar chunks that stuck to the car ceiling fabric,

That stuck to where he put them out years ago.

Smoke stays, momma used to say as she ironed my father’s shirts for work, smoke stays.

Smoke stayed in the air, it stayed in the clothes, and it stayed in the car.

I just wish it stayed longer

So I could’ve said goodbye.