Sometimes honesty

Can be too much of a thing

Outside the tobacco shop

In the duty-free airport

Where in a window display

On plate glass, trimmed

With the shine of expensive things

Light seductively shines

On a carton of cigarettes thatreads:

Marlboro—and then below

In bold black letters:

Smoking Kills—maybe

In the footsteps of great writtenhistory

I want to be lied to, to believe

That my existence is moreimportant than

Gross profits and fear oflawsuits; the

Coolness of cool, that after-sexoral

Treat—run scooter, runscooter—let’s

Give a dog a bone; but who am Ikidding

Even if the words: SmokingKills

Weren’t there, there is still thesilhouette

Of the cowboy, his hat, and horseriding

Westward, though we know whathappened

There, and I’m not here to judgeit, this is no

TV talk-show trial, see I’m abeliever in enterprise

Understand the weight between adollar and

A dime, but maybe I can’t help butthink

About the men dying at war,coffins lined

Like matchsticks on the desks ofvice

Presidents and secretary ofstates, who

Sit on the boards of companies like

Shell and Sunoco, in the nameof—

Truth—alliteration andaccumulation

As gas prices rise tall and hardlike good

Dick, and the dead rise togetherhigher

Than those twin towers before thatday—

Isn’t it good to know, at thisduty-free airport

That we can be in control of ourown destiny

Manifestdestiny—civilization, sophistication

Good will towards all sealed in abox as the near

Naked, blonde cardboard starlethangs in the corner

Of the display blowing smoke ringsinto the air.

My aunt the therapist calls it the art of fencing the way we kids beatdown with  eyes anyone who dared totake that rare leftover lone pork chop on a plastic plate set like something toconquer We were the poor man’s version of every man for himself stamped bygreen eagles and box cheese a time when clichés went broke like: blood isthicker than water We looked to jimmy carter and the good book though we had nodefinition for the word family We werebound because there was no one else because we had no sense to take knife and forkto divide and eat away what stood between us.