Starfire at Twenty-Three

A poem of imitation, smoke, first fire, and the people who like it.

As revolutionaries often say:

one spark can set a prairie alight.

There were other revolutionaries too.

Was the moment I first lit a cigar at twenty-three
the moment this pursuit began?

I saw the habit of imitation from adolescence
crawl up my fingers,
reach my lips,
and become smoke:
the kind that cannot be held.

Will the world end in fire?

But I have always been with people
who like fire.