they come in brands
high-class puff cigars
middle-class cigarettes
low-class BB &
unprocessed tobacco
they pollute lungs
harvesting lung &
throat cancers
in active and passive
smoking
those fresh lungs
lie within the chest
like grilled toads
with burst-out airbags
claiming heavy smokers’ lives
those tender lungs
petrified into twin coals
and dry cow dung
burnt in hell fire like sinful souls
this yellow tailed serpent
puffs like puff-adder
when seeing fresh lungs,
a stairway on heaven’s ladder
heavy smokers’ chests
dangle with twin biltong
shrunk like blown-out balloons
leaving heavy smokers hissing like a snake
this zig-zagging puff of smoke
kills like a brazier coal fire
shifting the death toll gear higher
every puff strangles the budget
leaving heavy smokers broke
smokers swim in addiction
and struggle against seas waves
drowning their lives
and reach their benediction
Amos Tebeila is a published poetry and novel author living in Middelburg, Mpumalanga province.