Pushcart 2026 L: Randy F. Nelson, “Hover O’er Me With Your Wings” from Ploughshares #160

Back then, everybody smoked. I knew guys who could jump-start a Zippo lighter just by snapping their fingers. People smoked in restaurants, movie theaters, airplanes, trains, college classrooms, funeral homes. I’ve seen people smoking, chest deep, in swimming pools. Children smoked back then. Monkeys in roadside zoos smoked. In junior high school, we had a designated smoking area for teachers and the dozen or so student hoodlums who had permission slips from home. The place I’m talking about was a crumbling asphalt pad just outside our school cafeteria. It looked like a miniature basketball court that had been jammed against the building. On most days, you could find three or four teachers in the vicinity and maybe five or six students. It was a sort of neutral zone where they could mingle like old friends until the bell rang for the next period. Every once in a while, you’d see some kid offering his lighter to a teacher who’d be patting his pockets or rummaging in her pocketbook. It…