There are many that I miss <br />having sent my last one out a car window <br />sparking along the road one night, years ago. <br /> <br />The heralded one, of course: <br />after sex, the two glowing tips <br />now the lights of a single ship; <br />at the end of a long dinner <br />with more wine to come <br />and a smoke ring coasting into the chandelier; <br />or on a white beach, <br />holding one with fingers still wet from a swim. <br /> <br />How bittersweet these punctuations <br />of flame and gesture; <br />but the best were on those mornings <br />when I would have a little something going <br />in the typewriter, <br />the sun bright in the windows, <br />maybe some Berlioz on in the background. <br />I would go into the kitchen for coffee <br />and on the way back to the page, <br />curled in its roller, <br />I would light one up and feel <br />its dry rush mix with the dark taste of coffee. <br /> <br />Then I would be my own locomotive, <br />trailing behind me as I returned to work <br />little puffs of smoke, <br />indicators of progress, <br />signs of industry and thought, <br />the signal that told the nineteenth century <br />it was moving forward. <br />That was the best cigarette, <br />when I would steam into the study <br />full of vaporous hope <br />and stand there, <br />the big headlamp of my face <br />pointed down at all the words in parallel lines.<br /><br />Billy Collins<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-best-cigarette/
