The Bottle 

After Father’s Day,
as I always do,
I take a bottle
of Maker’s Mark
         Whiskey
         Handmade,
its trademark signature
red wax flowing down the neck
of that bottle,
every bottle distilled
at Loretta, Ky. USA,
its fully matured contents,
light amber, carmel
from charred oak barrel,
my father’s medicine for PTSD
contracted in WWII,
machine gunner
for Patton’s Headquarter Company
in the Battle of the Belgium Bulge,
when he was blown out of his foxhole
by an exploding tank.

I place the bottle on his tombstone.
I have no way of knowing
who will drink it this year.