languishing in lancaster

by Bryce Alan Flurie
Black coffee at midnight.

After closing down
every coffee house in the county,
and weeknight pubs
closing their doors
long before midnight,
I stumble in for a Nat Sherman
and what had to be the stalest, rancid
cup of coffee in the state of Pennsylvania.

Gideon Bibles and rusty pocket knives
cut the same in strange towns.