Do you smoke?

a poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The first question the doctor asked me
when I visited him for my throat
“Do you smoke?”
“No”
“But you smoked before?”
“Sorry, but no I’ve never smoked”
the doctor looked sad and sighed.
Put a wooden stick in my mouth
told me to say “A”
Looked up in his medicine book
and gave me some tablets to chew.