A Futile Battle

He wishes he were younger
so he could fight in the war.
He likes killing,
or so he says.
A Vietnam veteran,
he's pushing 60 but looks 70.
They call him Mad Dog.
He swears he has stopped drinking.
but he's still drinking.
The results of a chest X-ray:
suspicious lesion, probable lung cancer.
He decides it's just a shadow.
He'll get a biopsy.
The truth will surface soon enough.
His mother, father, brother and oldest sister
died of lung cancer.
The odds are not in his favor.
He walks stiffly out of the office,
Mad Dog, out to do battle -
a battle he will lose.