Smoking a ciggy

Smoking a ciggy
atop a Saint Petersburg roof in summer,
tonight’s best friends are beside me –
our rucksacks sharing a room a few streets down.

Cathedrals stretch towards a sunset
that just can’t get itself to pierce the day.

But just now,
at this very moment,
my chest begins to ache.

This is old news –
the doctor back in Adelaide said it’s nothing;
said it’s just a chronic strain and not a sick heart.

But sometimes the gut
knows more than the doc.
I know, too, that my grandmother’s sick heart
took her before she had the chance to feel
my own beat.

Yet whether or not I’m really dying sooner than I’d like
or the body’s simply reminding me
that either way I’m dying
one day,
it’s not a heartbreaking kind of prompt.

More than anything
it’s just a reminder to live
whilst alive

as I chance these ciggies
atop a St Petersburg roof
with tonight’s best friends beside me.

Peach, aka Adam Klimkiewicz, is a poet living in Adelaide who has recently returned from performing house shows in the US and New Zealand. He works in community support coordination, and has been an events organiser in Rundle Mall. More of his poetry can be found here.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.