a memory of home

i am here smoking camel cigarettes again after three years and it makes me think of the first cigarette i ever smoked...our aged neighbours used to smoke and they had coffee cups full of 'benson and hedges' cigs in every room...one day, as a twelve year old, i snuck one...pocketed it...for later consumption...and when the folks were gone i went to the outer reaches of our property and smoked it in between the withering pines...i am happy that my first cigarette was a 'benson and hedges'...straight from the british empire's lips to my lungs...it was crazy and solitary...i loved my neighbours...they never had any children and were ancient by the time i was old enough to recognise their existence...in fact the patriarch still lives on in a wing named after him at the new york metropolitan museum of art...they suffered tremendously towards the end...he was sickly and died, she moved, but my father and i would still go over to help her out...she had m.s. and was miserable but never let on...she was always generous...they were interesting and worldly and i respected them for that...and even as young as i was i understood their suffering...whenever i would go over to their house i was always mystified by the interesting relics they had...especially the authentic egyptian sarcophagus with mummy intact...imagine being a child and witnessing that as window dressing...simply amazing...tonite, in the ghetto of my love, i miss that...i miss the subtle imperialism...i miss the subtle appreciation...all i have is my memory...all i have are the fading years...