Why I Smoke
a blank verse sonnet (why?) for R. J. Reynolds

My mother did while I was in the womb--
Cut back for me, she says, but still--She smoked.
It was the sixties. I forgive her that.

My grandpa was a Winston's man. He died
ten years too soon: A heart attack.

My dad bought carton Reds across the line
in Gary. Saved ten cents a pack that way.
He'd blow soap bubbles filled with blue
tobacco smoke when we were kids. We loved
to watch them wobble, pop, then puff.

My brothers both have asthma. Thankfully,
nobody's died of cancer yet, per se...
At seventeen I smoked a pack a day.
I try to quit and try to quit and can't.