Easter Lilies

I toss a small cube of sugar into the mix and watch it bubble up through the vodka and champagne. And you smile and we talk about art and life and flower shops with dusty books.

And while the red sauce simmers, a little chink-chink, crystal glasses with swans, the Cabernet a fine choice, champagne cocktails to start.

And the thought of a little village in Northern Ireland and those surrounding forests fill my mind with extreme longing, as if I’d been there before. Easter Lilies, dark hedgerows and days like today, all so perplexing.

And then in a moment,
just my imagination,
you were never there.