Smokers used to surround
my mother’s desk
when she worked
in the Exxon building
as a secretary,
before computers,
when it was hard
to find a place
without smokers
to get fresh air,
and she would come home sick,
with no blue
smoke in our house,
but this woman
standing outside
the Disability office all the way to the street
was reading
a book in the rain,
cold day,
the big black umbrella open
on her work break,
cigarette in her mouth,
made me wonder
about how we push
people away from us,
even when I know smoke
makes me sick,
and I will think about
her next time I sit
with my book
next to the candy machine,
with the bus drivers
coming in
with their blue
uniforms on after using the restroom.
Benjamin Nash has had poems accepted in Concho River Review, Louisiana Literature, 2River, Pembroke Magazine, and other publications.