Thursday 9 September 2010

One Cigarette - Edwin Morgan

Last month, poet Edwin Morgan died aged 90. The Poetry Society just posted a poem from his 2000 'New Selected Poems' collection. I like it a lot. Hope you do too. Here 'tis ...

Edwin Morgan
One Cigarette

No smoke without you, my fire.
After you left,
your cigarette glowed on in my ashtray
and sent up a long thread of such quiet grey
I smiled to wonder who would believe its signal
of so much love. One cigarette
in the non-smoker's tray.
As the last spire
trembles up, a sudden draught
blows it winding into my face.
Is it smell, is it taste?
You are here again, and I am drunk on your tobacco lips.
Out with the light.
Let the smoke lie back in the dark.
Till I hear the very ash
sigh down among the flowers of brass
I'll breathe, and long past midnight, your last kiss.

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