Smoking is terrible for you - we all know that,
But there's nothing quite as **** as a cigarette
With its wafts of smoke curving sensuously up
Like a winding staircase to heaven.

Maybe it's that, that Bacall and Bogie dance
Of noir fog above a lit cigarette,
Or it could be the intimate way
The word "young" is carved out on your slab,

Or the intimate way that the smell lingers
On the clothes of loved ones long after
You're dead and buried.
Nothing makes a guy harder than rigour mortis.