Still Smokes

She still smokes.
"All the best people do," Mom says
huddled together like anarchists
outside the party perimeter
before the big fight.

She says they're more interesting
her fellow counter-revolutionaries
steadfast to the death
which, incidentally, is more imminent
perhaps, than yours and mine.

"Don't worry about me,"
she says, "I'll live forever."
Then reminds me she's half Danish.
"We smoke into our nineties."
Which is true, except when it's not.

Down to one every hour and a half
down from two packs a day,
she notes the time like code
in tiny columns on a post-it note
in 2 point font, so she won't forget

Because she knows her memory is crap
like mine and my sisters'
we blame it on the tin foil
that wrapped our sandwiches
cut corner-to-corner all those years.

But she still does the Times crossword
every Sunday, knows the tricks.
"Where's my puzzle?"
she's been known to shout
before her coffee and voice have arrived.

She still buys waxed paper
and insists on twist-tie baggies
single-handedly supporting the industry
the last consumer hold out;
it's rogue.

She sneaks cigarettes to prisoners
who put up the tents
for the big bi-annual rummage sale
she's worked at for twenty-three years
as head of Household; it's leader.

She runs a tight ship
her systems have systems
from the department's wrapping station
to home hospital corners, she's defiant.
Everything has purpose.

So I kneel at the lower foot corner
of the bed, my elbow enveloped
by sheets that may be untucked
to be turned the right way, her way
we'll see. Time will tell.

I never smoked or drank coffee
so as to be nothing like her
and I'm a zip-lock girl and your bed is just fine
but I, too, like the anarchists
and crave purpose.