When To Start Smoking

There's a man shuffling through the quad.
He’s a veteran, to judge by his VFW hat and his age.
Almost all old men are veterans of some war or other.

He's dressed like either Laurel or Hardy--
I never knew the difference,
but he'd be old enough to know if he's still young enough to remember.

But he's dressed like some kind of vaudeville act:
The untucked button-down and baggy, too-long trousers.
The wide-cut necktie ends halfway down his chest.

His sagging and trembling face is white.
Whiter than the unlit cigarette that's drooping from his mouth.

cigarettes--
Around his pale wrist there's a plastic bag full of cigarettes--
some five or six packs, no two packs alike 
 (Camel and Parliament and Salem. Benson and Hedges, Lucky Strike, Kool) 

Maybe he's never been a smoker
and he's got nothing to do now but start. 

Now that I think about it, neither do I.