Smoking

 Three months without one and it's still there,

the itch beneath the scab, the nagging urge,

tap-tapping against my molars, and sending my tongue searching.between my lips for

the cotton, paper, and smoke.

The ancient priests knew the value of smoke,

saw the divinity in the ever expanding cloud, traced the prophecies in it's curls, and realized that our poor wingless prayers rode the rising

plumes like hawks gliding on thermal currents, circling their way heavenward.

So don't congratulate me on not smoking.

I have lost my prayers, my ritual, my vespers,

matins, and lauds, the punctuation of my days, the moments of respite, and  the fuel of my future plans. 

It is only the tube-brearhers, carrying their 

life support systems behind them on

two-wheeled carts, struggling across

the vast distance that is the doctor's 

waiting room who keep me from 

the box,  the cellophane, the foil and

the flame.