The Morning After

This knife inside your head is called remorse:
O God it won't come out! and reaching up
to stem the pain, your nausea's growing worse.
You reach and retch again. God make it stop!
It ends in bilious drool; you moan and curse,
and vow you'll never drink another drop.

And then a dawning fuzz of the night before:
broken glass and reckless flailing arms
in sudden sordid brawls; the boozy blur
of fists in heated moments; drunken storms
that flare and die in meaningless furor
and leave you nursing self-imagined harms.

Or worse: a violated aftermath
of crumpled sheets and forceful pressing weight,
insistent half-imagined hands and breath
on disadvantaged stupor, late at night.
And now this morning's stab of guilt and growing wrath -
O God turn back the clock for time inviolate!