“Old Flame” by Sarah Freligh

Brief Natural History of an American GirlDecades after I quit, I still dream
of lighting a cigarette and even
in sleep feel my fingers curve to grip
the filter tip of a Newport, recall
the arc I traced, groove of hand
to lip. Do I miss smoking or the girl
who smoked, who tucked a buck
in the pocket of her cutoff jeans,
so sure the world would buy her Jack
and Coke. Or miss the men who lit
me up—flick of thumb against greased
wheel, first hit igniting tiny white lights
strung nerve to bone, clatter of engine,
rev of cells : oh axons : oh dendrites.

Sarah Freligh,
A Brief Natural History of an American Girl (2012)
Accents Publishing

Sarah FrelighSarah Freligh is the author of Sort of Gone (Turning Point Books, 2008). Her work has appeared in The SunRattleBrevityBarn Owl ReviewCimarron Review, Iowa WomanThird CoastTar River Poetry, and Painted Bride Quarterly and on Garrison Keillor’s “Writer’s Almanac.” Among her awards are a 2009 poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a poetry grant from the Constance Saltonstall Foundation in 2006, and an Artist’s Exchange grant from the New York State Council for the Arts in 1997. She is a visiting assistant professor of English and creative writing at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York.

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