They popped Prosec’; so sec of throat
Was every gal and guy.
They had worked a long time,
So eyes and throats were dry.
And so they celebrated well
Into night’s darkened sky.

When they awoke, each was a wreck,
Hung over after bliss
From learning, it was a repast
That caused the ketchup kiss.

Such specks, such shapes, perhaps amiss
Went other scribes and smeared
The vellum, which, when new, was white—
Perhaps some on it teared.

One of them spake: “A layer cake
Is much like our travails
As we plumb substrate neighborhoods,
Looking for historical goods;
So far, we’ve seen no fails.”

“A layer cake!” A trope she makes
ln a faint southern drawl.
Then, a quick spin:
She reeled it in
Ere evincing a “Y’all.”

What for them would be next in store?
They shall resume their zeal
After, what cannot be denied:
A bad-hangover feel.

Their pounding pates feel all aflame;
The headaches have begun.
Perhaps some aspirin can save
Them from cranial drums.
When a person sodden be,
The postscript be not fun.

Scribes posted script in years now far
Gone—all of it effaced.
At this “tabla erasa” they peer,
Pates feeling as if maced.

Inside their skulls, a beating loud;
They’d be in better cheer
If celebration had stopped at one
Cerveza—um, that’s “beer.”

Too many sips they all had drunk;
For headaches to abate:
An anodyne to guide them through
Nauseous hours that ensue.
Why’d they inebriate?

Some pounding heads, some sour tummies
Then to the toilet bowl
Several make a fast journey
For obeisances on knees,
Which to the floor do fold.

Unbated bulk of upchuck came,
Not just once but at least twice.
Out it did run; it smells like chum
That’s not been bathed in ice.

The bowl’s rim drips as more pours out;
Dry heaves sound like a bark.
Then all arise from grounded knees;
Round rims ’neath eyes are dark.

They now have finished the upchuck,
Yet all still feeling quite up f**ked,
As if they’re on a ship
That braves a gale, staying upright…
Though in waves deeply dips.
They’ll go not soon out to a bar
To drink and then not feel on par
After too many sips!

Drunk, damnèd drunk…chugged much, too soon.
The lesson: get pie-eyed
And bells within your belfry clang—
You may wish you’d have died.

But the next shift must begin,
Despite the groans and moans.
They should have thunk…drunkens as skunks…
Voices like those of crones.

But they again apply their eyes
To open microscopes.
In future they’ll be dry, not high
And shy from rye or dope.