Smoker's Cough

He comes to me with a smoker's cough outside Hospital
We are both in paper robes – him in for emphysema, and I for Anorexia
Both for our health. Or lack thereof. Wind whistles through gowns. Feet blue.
Gruffly, the man asks, You alright, Girly? I nod once, and watch smoke coil from his fingers
The red mouth of the cigarette gleams. I think of how it can burn me -
Being anorexic is being a glutton for pain and punishment. They are my bedrocks.
The man says, in between coughing bouts, Never smoke. He says, What are you here for?
A lie, Stomach infection. He asks, Is that why you're so thin? I nod once.
His smoker cough rattles past his lips a few more times, and he sits down like an old man
Maybe forty, younger than my father. He says, I'm going to die.
An appropriate response? I settle on, Sorry.
He says, I'm going to be cremated and there won't be a funeral. Two lessons in life, Sweetheart -
Never smoke and never push people away. There won't be a funeral for me because
It would be embarrassing for my memory. It'd be a priest and my corpse. Never smoke.
And never push people away.
The smoker's cough submerges, gurgles in his throat.
His eyes bloodshot, yellow and terminal.
His cigarette's eye simmers down, greys, blackens, falls.

I look hard at him:
His thinning hair; his sallow cheekbones; his dark red scalp.
My eyebrows knot together. Who would be given his urn?