At last, on life’s long pub crawl

– Exactly where I don’t recall,

I finally crossed taste’s Rubicon

And left my youth behind

In sweeter shallows of the easy kind.

And at a darker Solstice now did halt

To drink scorched earth, dark rubied malt

Embracing, we are told, the bitter hops of fate

Now surging transubstantiate,

Its tidal foam running back from caramel sands

To fathoms of adult darkness.

And in this first communion, my mission now complete,

Absorbed full realization, that life is bitter sweet.