POETRY

ALICE DUGGAN

I POURED COFFEE FOR JESUS THIS MORNING



​Black, he said. Please. Seemed a little jumpy,
said he was running late. Lovely shoulders
on him, raised calluses crossing his palm.

He mentioned a lumberyard, a hurricane,
some shattered lives. When he was gone
I tasted the mug where his mouth had been,

glad he was not like his pictures at all, not lit
with that maudlin light. Tonight there’s a fresh
dusting of snow and I see him passing

a wrench to our neighbor, just across the street.
No gleaming hair falling in waves, just a cheap
haircut. Their heads down, under the hood
of a car.

​
Look at me, I say to the dark window.

Picture

​Poems by Alice Duggan have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Poetry East, Nimrod, Sugar House, SAND, Poet Lore; also in a chapbook, A Brittle Thing, and an anthology, Home, from Holy Cow! Press. She’s interested in dailiness, in colloquial speech, the rhythm of voices; in telling stories.