Ancestral Ballistics

My grandfather:

no telling how many

deaths he had a hand in—

Huns and Jerries; the Boche,

so vividly portrayed in Allied

propaganda posters,

bayoneters of babies,

rapers of Flemish virgins.

Artillery sergeant,

Battery B, 115th Field Artillery,

1917-1919, Belgium and France,

where his howitzers rained

shrapnel and white phosphorus

down on atrocity-minded

Krauts. A note on shell trajectory:

a six-mile medium arc above

the front lines, read he was

out of rifle range.

Lucky for my existence

all he came home with

was mustard-gassed lungs.    

Lucky for you, too—otherwise

you might be dizzily smiling

to yourself over a poem

about flowers and clouds.