Dead Soldiers

in college
we called our empty
bottles of beer
“dead soldiers”

this was in the years
right after
vietnam 
and the active draft —
it meant something then
though the meaning
was already fading
a little

youth of today

do you still call your bottles
“dead soldiers”
or are you starting to?

are you 
part of a privileged set
for whom “dead soldiers”
means only discarded containers
and nothing else
or part of the world
for whom it means

brother
father
sister
mother
comrade
lover
neighbor
empty