I told my second husband
that had he smoked
I would never have married him
when he smoked 3 packs of Kents,
at 42–almost died of a branch blockage, 
then grew a scraggly steel beard, 
recouped in their dining room, 
tilting his hospital bed up and down
to amuse his four year old daughter.

Today, however, 
in Kroger parking lot,
I saw a man
with caramel skin,
a red dishelved shirt, tucked out,
most buttons open, long legs
wrapped up in black denim jeans, 
leaning against a rusty old truck,
waves of dark hair, a funky straw hat,
eyes just cruising up and down a blue blue sky.

Long white cigarette
in that mouth,
at an angle–
he was smoking–
so so so
sexy,
movie star sexy, 
third husband sexy.