The D-Road
We’ve come this way before and will again.
On good days, we sing along to the radio,
turned up to make the silence rattle.
The packet sits in my lap until she asks.
It’s a two-handed operation to fill
the long vee, balance the filter.
I lift the paper to my mouth,
moisten the edge. Practice makes perfect!
This is the closest I shall ever come
to the rich sweetness of tobacco.
I watch her smoke it down to the filter,
flick it deftly out of the window.
It never lasts long. There is always
snow on the dashboard. I make another,
thinking of the year she tried to quit.
All those razor edges. I hand over
the next roll-up. I admire the flower, but – oh,
the mess we make of precious things.
Lauren K. Nixon is an indie author and poet, author of numerous short stories and several novels, along with four volumes of poetry (Wild Daughter, Marry Your Chameleon, umbel., Sing Madrigals, Old Gods and Hedgerows) and several plays. laurenknixon.com