Just one sip.

Yesterday came to an end; the sun slithered quietly into the ocean and day turned into night while I took one sip of remarkable wine that was strangely laced with all the kisses and punches of a live lived on the surface of the waters like an electric blue dragonfly. In that one sip I tasted refuge: it was like sailing into a small, calm harbour in northern France at sunset in September 1853 after days on an open, stormy sea, my hands shredded with rope-burn that would take weeks to heal and my lips split, swollen and parched Just one sip and worlds I knew nothing and everything about opened again in my heart, tight rose buds responding to morning sunshine, relaxing and giving themselves in shy confidence to the new day, knowing that by evening their petals would look a bit tatty and their perfume would fade with the setting sun. One sip, and the clamour of market places and battlefields crowd the space under the apple tree where I’ve taken shelter. The goblet trembles and the wine within it foams; the scent of fresh death rises from trampled grass. I thought to myself, “If that’s what one sip can do, where might a full bottle take me?” I’d better not. I have to worm the cat.