Smoke

"I need a smoke - "
she says to me as she brushes by,
eager to feed her addiction,
unable to hold herself back from self-harm.
Recently there was a news story,
you know how these things go,
revealing that smoked food items
are carcinogenic, unhealthy
"which is probably why they taste
sodamngood"
he says as he buries his maw deep
within trenches of smoked bacon,
beef, sausage
piled precariously
with smoked cheddar,
faint imitation of pizza,
flatbread almost invisible beneath
the weight of protein and dairy.
The sportsman camps in the woods,
drinking cheap beer alongside
scorched hot dogs and burnt beans,
his campfire smoking up the glen
in the night as it smolders to sleep;
in the morning, over hard tack
and trail mix, he mentions
to his children how a wildfire
can actually refresh the health
of a forest with choking undergrowth,
but we must always extinguish
the fires we set, lest the camp
creates a blazing inferno
which destroys the whole forest.
He pours water on the remains
of last nights coals and ashes,
stirs them to be sure there isn't
anymore smoke emerging.
The family goes to hunting,
but the wind is wrong
and they smell too strongly of smoke
and too much like humans
or maybe the animals are just lazy today,
sleeping in late, or on vacation;
maybe the animals are off
away from home hunting, too.
So the family says goodbye
to the other camping families
who are cheerfully settling in
for another night of campfires,
booze, stories, and songs.
comes back into town,
heads over to the pizzeria,
and settles down to eat
just as the red-faced man
begins to clutch his chest,
moaning and sputtering over
his smokehouse meats and cheeses.
The waitress comes back in
from her smoke break
and calls him an ambulance;
the paramedics arrive
and help the man.
At the hospital, a doctor says
it isn't a heart attack,
only angina, a warning
to get more exercise and
to eat healthier foods.
The waitress is freaked,
back at work still,
but she needs that cigarette,
"just five minutes, please,"
and she's outside when
firetrucks go wailing past,
towards a dark smudge on the horizon
where the outskirts of town seem to smolder,
emanating now obvious gouts of smoke
gushing forth from the forest.
The news reports that "sources
in the forestry service believe
the fire was caused by a careless camper,
and families in the area are being evacuated
ahead of the approaching smoke and flames."
The children,
in awe and horror,
turn to their parents,
who reassure them that
the fire was not their fault,
but probably another family
who did not pour water on the ashes
and stir them to make sure
that no more smoke was emerging.