Luck

by Michael Kriesel

Standing in the doorway with a beer,

he always offered me a can

when I got home.

Ted was a retired navy chief

who lived next door

and drank alone,

but I’d been in the navy,

so we’d stand and shoot the shit

sometimes until the moths came out.

One time he told me how

he ran the war at night

when all the brass went home.

Ted was at the Pentagon during Vietnam.

Every night he’d get these giant photographs

from air reconnaissance to analyze.

Every night he’d tell

the pilots what to bomb.

I didn’t understand back then

the way he drank alone

with his own ghost,

though now I’m old enough

to just be glad I never

had the luck to kill someone—

much less whole photographs.

~ first published in Chiron Review