Ace Boggess: Like All Petitioners He Must Wait

“…Like All Petitioners He Must Wait

(How Many Cups of Coffee in an Hour?)”

—William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch

Waiting for a screwdriver,

I sit at the counter sipping old coffee.

In West Virginia, the law says

no liquor sold before one o’clock

on Sunday— no conflict with church or Mass.

So I ask, Is it to keep the congregation sober,

to draw worshipers from their other chapel

of stained glasses, cigarettes & need,

or to give the pious time for catching up?

Minute hand moves like a traffic light:

slow clicks, anticipation. I wait with coffee,

my hands pale & cold against the mug,

to hear the clinking ice cubes, bells

waning in the temple of hard serenity.

Ace Boggess