Brand

Peter Mladinic

My desire for there to be an afterlife

equals my conviction there isn’t one,

sing as one may, alone or in unison,

“When we all get to heaven.”

A heaven less screwed up than earth

where we long, and love and hurt.

An eternal present from which we look

down at the past; everyone has one

and everyone’s isn’t exactly alike.

Mine has a river, houses with chimneys.

A river I knew, and in the houses people

I knew well enough to know what brand

of cigarettes each smoked. Camel,

Lucky Strike, Raleigh, Chesterfield. Pall

Mall in a red package comes to mind,

a time before filters. My past, the States,

Kent’s Micronite filter hit its stride shortly

before the Nixon-Kennedy debate.

My past has a river, the Hackensack,

a president Dwight D. Eisenhower,

houses with chimneys, behind windows

and doors, smokers, each coupled

with another and divorce unheard of.

I knew Mr. Z’s Camel’s, his wife’s Raleigh’s,

her father’s Pall Malls. The click a sliver

lighter made when the lid flipped down

and breath drew in smoke. Is there

breath in the afterlife, are there doors,

and rivers, as there were where I loved

and hurt? Hard to envision. Maybe it all

happens again: the milk box, the stoop,

Mr. R’s watch chain’s arc across his vest,

who came from the Old County, took

a Pall Mall from the pack. His Zippo’s

click I hear in memory. I hate someday

I won’t; I wish I believed differently.

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My most recent book of poems, House Sitting, is available from Anxiety Press. An animal rights advocate, I live in Hobbs, New Mexico, United States.