Whatever It Takes

She buried her husband
the man she loved
but really he
died years earlier.
after a year in Vietnam.
the war began once he returned home.
It ended when he was shot
and killed by police
holding granddaughter at knifepoint,
refusing to let her go.
He knew he was done.
There was no doubt in his mind,
and there was no doubt in her mine.
It was just a matter of when.
He returned a different person.
Life was not normal in their world.
Still, she stuck by him for 38 years,
Until this fall.
It was over.
He began drugs.
Within a few months,
he was dead.
"They program these guys to kill
without a conscience.
You can't send them home
to families like that,
that's when the war begins."