Giving Up

It was hard to stop not due
to the science of nicotine ingestion,
but because of the smoke hanging
over the Chattanooga I remember,

that clings elegantly over its river
in evening. A birthday party,
beer rings on pizza house tables,
a small wetness of street dew

in the bends of a good shirt.
It was difficult to stop,
because I couldn’t bang or tap
out the residue of a few faces,

because their ashes refused to clear
in the wind even of another country.
In that burnt flavor, there
is something of those over-

spent nights, wearing out
guitar strings. Something
of the slow, artful
southern dawn.