A Memory

Walking with Amina

Baraka in the blueback

cold. She tugs

a cigarette from the open

mouth of her purse

and lights it.

She mentions she didn't

sip a cigarette until

she was quite thirty,

never stopped.

I am amazed.

I am 26, have never

sucked that slim death

and pride myself

out of the woods.

Why did you start?

She points

to Amiri, shuffling

a few yards ahead

of us, fumbling

for his own pack,

and answers.

That mother

fucker right there.