Sat next to an old timer down at the shop last week,
he looked older than Methuselah,
piercing blue eyes surrounded by red,
seemed nearly dead,
like he’d been crying for a century.
He told me he was from Tennessee,
another good old Southern boy like me
& we got to talking about all kinds of things.
We ran at the jaw from baseball to politics,
frolics & war, even diamond rings.

I learned he was a fellow veteran,
said he had worked on the big boy
during the last big one,
said it wasn’t much fun,
but they were sworn to secrecy
to do it.
I pondered for a second or two,
knew exactly what he was talking about,
that Manhattan Project,
the huge mushroom-bomb!

Being a kindred soldier,
I leaned over, knew I was safe,
& asked him how he felt,
how he felt about its effects,
all that killing.
It got really quiet, eerily silent,
then he looked at me
& with a lone tear
rolling down his wrinkled cheek,
replied,
“Son, they killed my brother
in the Pacific, which killed
my mother in Cypress Creek,
which killed all my childhood dreams.”

Strange,
            how
                    killing
                              trickles
                                          downhill.