She doesn’t drink too often, and she never drinks too much.
But tonight, when she discovered the forgotten bottle of pink champagne –
Something she had bought for a recent celebration and had forgotten to open –
She couldn’t resist.
It had been a long evening.
Cooking dinner, folding clothing, hearing about the day’s details.
All things that made her feel like a woman of practical purpose,
A good and fulfilling thing for a woman to feel.
But as she sipped the first glass of champagne while rereading
An old novel of passion and unexpected endings,
She left the freshly folded towels and Chinese food behind.
She was a shy young woman learning to become a mistress,
Enchanting the man who vowed to spend only a month with her
As he taught her what was expected.
She’d read it before.
It was a fiction spun in a setting nearly two centuries earlier.
And as she sipped the second glass of champagne,
She felt herself smile.
The taste was sweeter,
The soft black fabric of her shirt softer,
The feel of her fingers along the keyboard different.
She felt the hair she had brushed earlier against her cheek as she bowed to read the screen.
She felt the smoothness of her freshly scrubbed face, and the faint peppermint smell of the soap she had used.
She felt the champagne’s warmth spread behind her sternum.
So she closed the story whose ending she already knew,
She stepped outside to see the size of the moon and feel the breeze
(and yes, to take care of her beloved dog).
And then she walked back inside,
Took off the glasses that had been perched on her nose,
And slipped under the covers and in between
The soft sheets.
Ready to dream
In pink champagne.
smilingtomyself 