Read Poem: Marlboro Man by Suzanne Crain Miller

You showed up with your siblings.

We’d never seen anything like you.

You who walked among us like Achilles

through camps of grimy, plundering soldiers.

Chiseled cheek bones strong and lean physique

as if ready to take on the world,

Or run as far from it as you could at a moment’s notice.

And you had this way about you.

This throwback to another era kind of cool,

a cross between James Dean and John Wayne.

I thought for sure you were on your way up

and I loved you instantly.

We all did, knowing full well that greatness like yours

is a once in a lifetime occurrence to behold.

Those times we spent together roaming our town,

rummaging through places that were usually locked

yet were somehow unlocked just for us,

talking for hours, with an ease only we had.

A bond others envied, mocked through clenched jaws.

How…