We drink to those lost at sea and never made it off the beach; to those who won’t make it home, buried in the salty deep. Mothers’ sons that we knew so well, without a care or a chance in hell. Laid a life on a line in harm’s way and out of mine so their brothers could live to tell. So my brother could live to tell. “How the sky never looked so deep with the moon shining down on me.” “I never known it before burning foreign shores, boys in flak and trench, prayers to stave off death unheard.” “So old man pour another couple rounds on me. Keep ‘em coming and the rye in reach.” “Be it shellshock or heartbreak we’re all dying for a stiffer drink; or dying on a line, no god there to hear our plea.” “Laid out and desperate, no blood here left to bleed.”