Outside the women cluster on the footpath
Before time
All filled with longing, yearning for their love
Sweet faithful ethanol

Balked by that barracade of wood and glass
The hotel door
Balked by insistence on a rigid law
For opening time

At last, when doors to paradise spring wide
There comes the push
And loud bids vie to gain the bar’s attention
That first jug or nip

Then, title-rights to customary tables claimed
First glass
And in that moment their love consummated
Satisfaction

Glass follows glass, jug follows jug
And ladies loo
While tailor-mades and gossip punctuate
Times flight

Outside concerns are kept at bay by these walls
This sure haven
Life’s stresses sublimate. With culpability
Shed at the door

Yesterday, today, and every day but Sunday
This is living
The apogee of all that this world offers
Found right here