Waiting in Line at the Liquor Store   That look we exchange in the liquor store — it’s all right there: shame, defiance, oblivion, the love we’ve been denied. Let’s ignore the voice of the village scold, let’s not give   ourselves up to the perp walk, flashing red lights in the rearview, the deputy’s soft knock in the middle of the night, screaming fights, the drunken uncle whose wine-crazy talk   ruins everything. I guess I agree: booze leads to madness, sometimes in those who drink and always in those who don’t — those who choose to scorn the devil’s alchemy. But think   of it: money turned to spirits, America’s hardest-fought dollar in exchange for song, friends, poetry, moments without care — the lifted chalice, the loving cup, strangeness.   Don’t I know you from somewhere? Wasn’t I that apeman in the cave of magic berries — and you that apewoman wandering by, she who grunted, Fancy meeting you here?     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont October 2012