The Way Queenie Smokes
Bunched up in the front of the white van
he smirks tapping the cigarette,
loosening ash out of the slit
in the window, onto the road.
Smoking is his excuse for delicacy.
His long fingers are allowed extension,
his wrists can move with grace. Still stained
from the day on site.
He sits dishing the goss about Alan’s failed affair
and Stevo’s dodgy brother. As Pav sits in the middle
with The Sun, absentmindedly singing along to the radio.
The way Queenie smokes is why they call him Queenie,
ballet-poise along his whole arm out to his held fingers.
Long sensuous drawing up of the smoke into his lungs,
a gentle letting forth of smoke from his mouth.
The rasp to his laugh rattles his belly
squashed tight into his stained t-shirt.
This Poem appeared in issue 19 of Under the Radar magazine