The Edge of a Glass

Every drop you sip from the bottle

seals out another wished-for dream

a little more, gives you less

to work on, saps the energy

needed to get through each day.

Makes us all analyse our own lives,

we’re not all that different, like a pint

and a laugh, or we did before this,

now your blotched face, like Falstaff’s,

is a beacon, warning against attack.

Drifting far away now, severed from family,

disowned you at Christmas, fifty-three,

ex-wife cut the umbilical cord the year before,

all demons released at the same time,

chasing you to work, racing you to the bar.

And now it is morning, familiar headache

throbs, as you sigh for all that time until

the next vessel is filled, the next edge

prepared, as one by one your hopes expire,

like liquid from a glass, nothing lasts.