By six pm on Friday afternoon, I take my promised pleasure

from the fridge. All week denied to safeguard function of the

liver, deter heart disease, ensure that I can take the wheel

at a moment’s notice, or simply claim I’m not the lush I could

so easily become. A sigh of sweet surrender to the lull and hum

of its nerve-softening song that tempers all the tensions of the

working week, each compromise and hassle on the street, each

forced smile and weary offering of self. Such Nectar of the gods

feels more like succour of the suburbs as I plop the kids in front

of the TV, flop down beside, prepare to dull my loathed sobriety.

With house keys on the hook, bra strap unclasped, golden friend

and I will sink into easy chair and easy evening, burble platitudes

and pleasantries of nothing in particular, and nothing much to fear

while blurring my ‘to do’ list into background. Cup the cool curve

of my glass, tip the full, round brim of yellow gold, so sharp-sweet

so tingling cold towards my lipstick chafing lips, then let elixir slip

along my throat like liquid silk. Only a glass or two but just enough

to ease, enough to soften creases in my forehead, the stiff set of my

shoulders. Smooth the light and mute the drone of all the buzz and

bluster of the day, rocking evening into golden amber mellow.