White Eagle

I am in Nova Scotia
in the house on the rocks
below the center-pole
next to a wooden crate
filled with little pieces
of swift-burning driftwood.

I drift back to an imaginary time
when the crate was filled with ginger ale.

Oh the hot mid-August atmosphere
of 1951 that might drift through
the stiff aluminum-screened door.
Sitting around drinking
White Eagle Pale Dry & Golden Ginger Ale.
The tales of the past I might hear
as I write today on another humid afternoon
next to the box, stamped and registered
by the White Eagle Bottling Works
of Chicopee Falls, Mass.

I could almost be there,
sipping a cold White Eagle
with a few friends in their late twenties,
somewhere west of Boston.

Andy has a leg blown off in the war,
Terry's body was blown off his leg,
and he is not there at all anymore.
I am alright, thoroughly because of luck.
Bobby, pale and dry, is still shellshocked,
and hung over again.

We might talk about girls,
dirty millwork and fishing.
We might put the box in some corner
when we are done.