If I could have had anybody as my first drinking partner,

the first one for whom the tempting taste of

bitter

in a dimpled handled glass, offered over

with great ceremony from a woman with biceps

protruding, bursting out from underneath a starch filled blouse

more obscenely than an unsightly black tar mole covered in three curly grey hairs,

who suspected I was underage

but knew I could control the art of a pint without making a scene

in the Bicester darkness and in the company of pre-cancer darts players cussing