Mike Zisser
a vigil, ten years later

Cigarette butts
clog        the        s w o l l e n
ashtray
where my grandfather
once sat as he
watched cowboy movies
on TNT.

"You know those are bad for you,"
I would say but,
the advice of a ten-year-old
is always in vain.
Instead,
he threatened me with
knuckle-sandwiches
and I laughed
a thousand laughs and
                                ran away.
(He was a funny man, my grandfather).

                Years later,
I sit in that same empty room
alone --
smokeless and clear
for once,
yet I cannot see my grandfather;
he rests peacefully in an ashtray
of his own.

I light a cigarette in memory;
a vigil to him and the Marlboro Man --
As a fallen tear drowns the cadent ashes
I realize that I'd take
a knuckle-sandwich
over anything in the world.

<< Back to Issue 8, 2005