The Coffee is Broken

          The coffee is broken;
          Its swarthy tentacles
          Relentlessly slap my face
          But never achieve suction

          I droop, dour face hidden
          From cubical-navigating coworkers
          Behind a flailing squid

           “Hi Ant!”

          I flash a palm at the floating accountant,
          Cheery upon
          Orangutan shoulders

          Flumping on my porcupine,
          The native monitor usually
          Smarts my eyes with darts,
          But not today
          Thanks to my coleoid shield

          Whalers sailed through my window,
          Reduced my bed to springs;
          The cephalopod, unable to resist,
          Dons eight coils and hops
          On rings of bone
          Through the ship-shaped maw—
          The bouncing twang wanes
          As he scales moonlit yards,
          Searching for another
          Drawn junky.

Best of the Net nominee Rich Glinnen is a market researcher by day and a writer by night. He enjoys bowling, and eating gruyere with his cats at his home in Bayside, NY. His work can be read in Kenneth Warren’s Lakewood House Organ, Foliate Oak, petrichor, and Rue Scribe. His wife calls him Taco. WEB
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