Smoke

Smoke


I wish you were fifty again
and we could go to Ellie’s diner
before work and we could eat
breakfast and you could smoke
two or three cigarettes and drink
two cups of scalding hot coffee and dip
your toast wedge into the yellow egg yolk

We wouldn’t talk about the plans
for the day
and the current on-the-job Admin idiocy
(since we’d left off fire fighting)
But we’d talk about that fire we had
on Mooberry Street and laugh about
John getting stuck in the closet
and the time Chief Cline
(the best officer we ever had)
ran into Plank’s Bier Garten
through a wall of black smoke
to pull the engine crew out
just before the roof fell in

I wish you were fifty again
with the ever present cigarette
stuck between your fingers
and a coffee cup in your right hand
with the neatly trimmed nails
(not like a working man’s hands, but they were)
and Ellie’s short order cook
scraping scrambled eggs and bacon
off the sizzling grill

You retired ten years ago
and quit smoking six years after that
Now, you’re sixty-five
and your doctor told you
you only have thirty-seven percent lung capacity
and it’s getting worse because of scar tissue
buildup in the lower lobes
So he’s got you on eighty milligrams prednisone
That makes you swell up and gain too much weight

Over the phone, we plan to get together
one more time around Christmas
for Charity Newsies
for breakfast at Ellie’s
You tell me, “You probably won’t recognize me.”

I hang up the telephone
and wish you were fifty again
cocky, breathing just fine
and all those cigarettes
just waiting to be smoke