Hangover

A peach with a thumbprint of its skin scuffed off,

sits on your desk and you

put too much pressure on it to

make you feel good.

Its juice, you imagine, will renew you,

the taste will blend away the

memory of wine from last night.

The rest of the day stretches out in front of you,

a laser beam of tiredness,

and you blink away lunchbreak headlines about

the rainforest burning and the

far right stampeding on.

Pull to refresh your horoscope feed.

Drink the tea your friend makes you.

Eye the peach with its graze,

reminding you

of the time you fell over in the playground 

after school,

running hard and 

holding hands with the girl who played

the Angel Gabriel in the nativity,

four skinned knees before teatime.

The peach attempts to make you feel better,

yes,

and for a moment it tastes like one you ate 

on a holiday in Greece when you were nineteen,

but it does not cure you: 

you want crisps or something like that now,

or to curl up like a snail shell and

sleep for a hundred years.