LUCKY STRIKE / MEANS FINE TOBACCO

She’d forgotten to buy cigarettes for her party.

In those days, a hostess—
even one who didn’t smoke—
stood cigarettes on end in a container
that looked like a miniature silver-plated potbelly stove.

“Run down to Jerry’s for a pack of Lucky Strikes,”
she said to me. I was seven. “I’ll call,” she said,
“and tell him you’re coming.”
In those days, I did anything she asked.

I entered the woods behind our house, a trail
that led to a busy street. In the store,
Jerry handed me the Luckies with a matchbook
and told me to get the hell home fast.

I knew I had danger in my pocket.
Half-way back, I stopped in the woods
and took out my purchase. I read the pack: LS/MFT.
I struck a match to see what striking a match was like.

I wanted to delay going home, wanted to be watched
by unseen eyes in the forest as I struck a match.
I knew my mother was getting worried.
Where are the cigarettes? she was wondering.

In those days, danger promised to be something so fine.


by Anne HardingWoodworth



Anne Harding Woodworth’s most recent book, Spare Parts, A Novella in Verse (Turning Point, 2008), is about a friendship based on NASCAR. Her essays and poetry have appeared in U.S. and Canadian journals, anthologies, and at several sites on-line. She is a member of the Poetry Board at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.


Visit her webpages at www.annehardingwoodworth.com