Boy’s Night

Woke with a drier throat than composed
on going to bed, that amazing quality of
obligatory ‘prescribed’ Bombay Sapphire
lubrication, ostensibly yesterday’s first-aid
for a ‘boy’s night’ at home.

Only small amounts were imbibed in the
time honoured way, iced with tonic and
a twist of lime, Schweppes conversation
fizzed like a view of eternity ubiquitously
trapped in clear plastic.

Yet the throat played numb in an abject
morning of mourning giving rise to those
less than salutary reflections about why
one has to suffer – answer came logically
out of left field as a vague memory.

Yesterday is far more than a year past,
a wink pays homage to expectations of
invulnerability or shared dreams of glory,
and the way one wakes morning after
still tells only part of the story.
© 13 February 2011, I. D. Carswell