Temptation Calculation

My resistance folds like a crisp sheet
when the bottle is passed close by.
Willpower ends with a road closed sign
at the end of a lonely street.

Who can stay the trembling hand?
The hand that reaches across an eternity.
As the secondhand of the clock unwinds,
with the upward motion of the hourglass sand.

It reaches my lips and burns
a shallow channel down my throat.
Then the wrench torques from within,
and I can feel the screws turn.

Already it is far too late.
Gravity has me as I step off the cliff.
The second sip tastes sweet and dead.
A peach that was picked too late.

I’ll be gone forever and a day.
Or until I awake - pounding.
Blood pumping like a freight train.
To dry to pray.