A Fresh Fat Cuban
Nov 2 2010


There was the smell of cigars.
In the den, where he read the evening paper.
In the car
always a late model Oldsmobile.
Smudging the windows
with a dull blue haze,
crumpled in ashtrays, the blunt remains
of stogies
dark with spit.
Rolling around his lips
not paying much attention,
the way a couple kiss
after 40 years of marriage.

Stale cigar smoke
is like a beer parlour at closing time,
better in low light
urgently opening windows.
But when someone puffs
on a fresh fat Cuban
you can’t get enough,
inhaling the 2nd hand smoke
with greedy pleasure,
nose extended, nostrils flared.
Impatient to be grown up,
when you will be ushered in
to the secret society of men,
who can knot a bow-tie, eyes closed,
tell off-colour jokes,
light up a stogie
old-school.

My glamorous uncle
would come all the way up
from New York City,
stashing a box full of hand-rolled Cubans
in his matching bags.
The thrill of contraband
immensely improving
the long slow draw
of well-cured tobacco.

My dad quit
a few years after I left home.
I never did learn how to smoke.
But I still love the smell
of a good cigar.
The thick smoke, uncoiling;
the rich brown leaves
with a little green
in the wrapper.

I can only hope
that one day
I will have something to celebrate
worthy of a fine cigar.
Passing around
a well-stocked humidor
to comrades, and co-conspirators,
swapping backslaps
and manly laughter.



The closest I ever got were those cheap wine-dipped and plastic-tipped Cigarillos: in my defence, a mercifully short-lived form of adolescent rebellion.

The rest is largely true. With embellishment (poetic license?), of course. My father never really smoked that often; only on special occasions. And he never drove an Oldsmobile; but the brand has that nice archaic sound, and evokes a past era delightfully – well before the age of political correctness. Back when a prosperous executive bought a new car every two years. And fits nicely this whole archaic notion of “manliness” (Which, needless to say – except somehow I feel I need to say it – I’m using entirely ironically!) I don’t think anyone says “late model” anymore, either. And while newspapers still struggle gamely on, the evening editions have altogether disappeared. The New York uncle always did seem glamorous; and I’m sure those illegal Cubans tasted twice as good because of it. And the smell of stale cigar smoke is really quite revolting, while the smell of a freshly smoked cigar is intoxicating: better, I think, 2nd hand than it is for the actual smoker.

My mother eventually had her way, and my dad quit. My brother, too: also to the eternal relief of his own long-suffering wife!

I’ve been watching a TV series called Boardwalk Empire, set in Atlantic City at the time of prohibition. The men here drink too much, step out on their wives, wear gorgeous suits and great hats, and smoke big fat cigars with impeccable style. I don’t want to emulate them. But these archetypes do strike me as the essence of manliness, and the well-savoured cigar is an indispensable part.

…I just realized that when the paternal side of my family first came over from Europe in the 1800's (from Amsterdam, actually) they were in the cigar business! In fact, the precursor to a fairly big chain called United Cigar (which may not still be around; but was when I was a kid.) So perhaps there's a cigar aficionado's gene lurking somewhere inside me, and I was destined – sooner or later – to write a cigar poem!