The Smokers

Some days I wonder if I’ve earned this life.

Sitting by the smokers outside our classroom

I zone out and wonder who will be the last one of us alive

and wonder how each one of us will die. I picture each of us

on our death beds, surrounded by family, kids and grandkids, friends,

some of us dying sooner than we should; and I can’t help

but feel profound love for these incomplete people, striving,

wrestling heroically with themselves, rising, falling,

each smoking a cigarette in between their classes.

And some days I wonder if she will wait for me. I don’t think she will.

People mean well, but they can rarely wait for you.

Life is very fast, fleeting, and fragile; waiting makes it seem more so.

But I understand. Really I do. She can’t help it.

It was always going to be like this. As soon as she called me

that first time and I eagerly picked up the phone it was already done.

I knew yesterday when she crossed the street to meet me for lunch

and her cell phone rang and instead of waiting she took the call.

We embraced, her phone still pressed to her moving lips.

Sometimes the world is undone by such small things as that.

for Brit