This went in unexpected ways. Let me know what you think.
I heave up each ritual drawbridge: cigarette
and coffee, cigarette and phone, cigarette and
window-staring. I get distracted by the constant
negotiation to stay present in the meeting,
the ride-along, the homework. I fortify myself
through my nostrils, my true and false ribs,
a mug compress held to my forehead with two
soft hands. Despite the gimmicks to quit, a marauder
grabs me by the scruff of the neck. I am levitated
by dangling arms and legs. The dangerous withdrawal
of tobacco, ascetic acid, ammonia, arsenic, cadmium
formaldehyde, lead, methanol, nicotine and tar.
A bridge permits or hinders passage. I am
the absence of smoke, a body mass of cranky
determinism. It's true I can taste the Mediterranean
in the pasta sauce, a remote and crumbling castle.
The bar stools rumble at the breakfast counter.
We never eat at the table, even when all five of us
are in the tower. A drawbridge lets down chink
by chink. The plunder is real. I stand on the other
side of myself. The long tunnel of bedtime—I whisper,
I laugh. It's always the same story with children.
The heat of their small to medium bodies pressed close,
rooting to belong. Husbands, too, swallowed up
by the lateness in an underground of unspoken.
The thrall of a household after the silence. I pad
the hallways in sock-footed imminence. Trees
rustle through the windows. I open and shut
doors. Ovate leaves rattle at the base
of my throat like craving. Anticipation is a box of
Marlboro Reds. I break in half three-quarters
of the cigarettes. A lighter is a talisman in the
pocket of my bathrobe. The front door unlatches
the ambience of night. I feel my way to the stoop,
waiting for my eyes to adjust. The porch is a wind
tunnel. The chimes gong three clear notes. The roof
casts a rectangular shadow in the grass. I sit on the
cold cement next to the hydrangea. I protect the scratch
of a small flame and inhale the burning tobacco. A rush
dowses my body with a chill. Mist rolls from my brain
to my shoulders to my coccyx. Stars prick my night
vision, pulsing unknowable points. Burden of bridge
triggers counterweight. A barbarian calm washes over
me, rank as moat water. I am out-urged by the
machinery of desire, the last portcullis of addiction.