The smokes pop out

Going through old pictures, the smokes
start to jump out at me; there's one
behind my ear, head-on
to the camera and inscribing a circle,
perfect in its symmetry,
a white-rimmed lunar eclipse.

I look tough.
Most of the time
photos lie by showing only one aspect
of a thing at a time.

In the photos we all have cigarettes.
We don't,
but we look like we could or should,
because we are young.
Cigarettes are for the young, and quitting
is an acknowledgement of
one's own mortality.

My life will not be
a field by the river, crawdads
and free smokes, festival beer
and in-jokes.
Or it won't be that entirely or all the time.
So, realizing that,
down go the Marlboros.