How to Drink Wine on a Weeknight

Step one: opening the box

Perforated cardboard: tear here.

Like a paint by numbers for destruction.

You know exactly what you’re meant to be doing,

and yet, is it any easier?

One move outside the lines and we’re left staring at an effort

lesser than the prescribed result,

asking us, “Even this, you could not achieve?”

Eventually, you are inside,

coaxing a crumpled bag into cooperating.

Urging it upright.

Encouraging the spout to work with you,

not against you.

An act of persuasion that comes all too naturally.

Step two: the first glass

It comes out forcefully,

as most forces for upheaval do.

Even with your finger on the button you know

you could not have controlled this situation.

Then again, control is overrated.

The pour is deeper than you intended.

But why not dive in, deep-end first?

This way, you won’t need to circle back.

Not that a few laps ever hurt anyone.

Walk away with your eye on the brim,

level-set on your destination.

Which will it be tonight?

The couch: a spot to sink into, heavy with the distractions of complimentary binges.

The tub: a cleansing respite, that’s more trouble than it’s worth.

The computer, then: armed with the antidote to your avoidance. Do all to-dos seem more doable under the influence of this induced inspiration? Will these words wash over you, suddenly, whether or not they’re the words you though were waiting behind the dam?

Step three: subsequent glasses and potential side effects

“Is this an effective strategy?” you wonder,

sopping up a drip from the rim with a paper towel left on the coffee table.

This is the problem with a lot of boxes:

their lack of transparency.

Unaccountable and unnoticed,

the bottom of a bottle slips by, unaccounted for.

The glass that you do peer through, though,

a portal in front of you, a wide window

doing nothing to screen out your overtapped system.

Messages riddled with typos and bravado.

Every effort to seem effortless.

Spurred with the intentional force of a spout

with too damn much behind it all, crumpled and coerced into its box.

A comment less on the content than on your current circumstances:

Drained. Distracted.

Momentarily determined to make a point

before the lack of sharpness really sets in.