Sunday Morning After . By Sam Barbee

Just before sunrise pauses,

too-familiar gauze of light

rouses where I must circulate.

The medicine cabinet

mirrored door cracked open,

willing assistant in my renewal.

Saturday night punishes me:

was over the top, one for the books,

adds to the legend, typical mythical cool.

I gingerly secure the beveled door,

and search out redemption

where only admonition abides.

Hairline fissures full-blown

when I round the corner,

incandescent in full-silvered view. 

A beveled mirror ledge

reveals what remains, semi-cracked

remnant, in-frame transience.

I claim, promise, and pledge

to whoever takes witness at these times

never to imbibe again . . . to excess. . . .

Rebuke, caffeine and Kahlua

as companions, I must now scan

newsprint, hoping not to see my name.

  Sam Barbee's poems have appeared Poetry South, The NC Literary Review, Crucible, Asheville Poetry Review, The Southern Poetry Anthology VII: North Carolina.   His second poetry collection, That Rain We Needed (2016, Press 53), was a nominee for the Roanoke-Chowan Award as one of North Carolina’s best poetry collections of 2016. 

Previously published in the Main Street Rag  in their Burgers and Barrooms anthology in 2016