The Shoebox - Day 3

Cobb, Detroit
#9, Turkey Red Cigarettes, 1911 (reproduction)

Oh they act stung when you're hard as they've made you,
when the bills are all due and the flesh is gone.
Just playing around, they were, a rite to trim
the fuzz of youth. You were mean
as the age was mean, wrong for the reasons our fathers
were. A wool jersey chafes in the August sun.
How many cigarettes will a man smoke to give his son
your picture? We know better now. Your name
on the plaques, not the old men who dogged
a rookie's heart. When something in the pit
of a fellow fruits to legend, what's forgiveness?
An echo, an asterisk. For all the good it does.