The Sparkling Flush

with flushed apologies to Thomas Hardy

I leant above a toilet bowl;
   My Face was white as paste,
And Spring Break's kegs made casserole
   Lay porcelain sheen to waste.
The potluck dinner tore my throat
   Like glass from broken panes,
And all my friends took turns to gloat
   And watch me retch my brains.

The john's cold contours seemed to be
   The Stomach's hull untipped,
Its mast the handy towel-tree,
   The contents freight unshipped.
My violent gags from beer and gin
   Were tempered cool and slow,
And every spirit I took in
   I finally flushed below.

At once a vision swirled among
   The gastric-wrung remains,
And like a seabound monster tongue
   That slurps up sailing Danes,
The Tidy-Bowl, fresh, blue, and clean,
   In germ-forsaken spume,
Enveloped raft-like spewed cuisine
   And sucked it from the room.

Such cleansing acts of jettison
   By such revolting means
Allow a man to have his fun
   And eat it too, it seems;
So though I left to stumble through
   The chilly good-night air,
I rushed back in to grab a brew
   And chug it on a dare.

© Rachel Lindley