A cigarette butt on the sidewalk
Discarded, unwanted
Scraped underfoot into a stain:
Onionskin paper, filter, and tobacco
Vilest of litters
Its paper
Born of noble lineage
Papyrus and velum, its kin
Its filter
Synthetic hair, once oil
Reformed by chemical invention
Its tobacco
Nature’s own weave that turns
Sun, sky and water into living body
The butt, a palimpsest of
Life, intelligence, culture.
Vile and magnificent.
Ivan Amato 