Jitter Juice

The coffee maker’s

cacophonous, its array

of beeps enough to

rouse the dead.

No need for over-

kill—though my eyelids

have been leaden

as if weighted down by

coins, a pair of

silver dollars

bearing Lincoln’s

bearded visage,

laurel-headed

Caesar, or a Pharaoh’s

crowning pschent;

my arms clasped to my

sides

like a stiff & mummied

Ramses, woozy like some

bandaged Lazarus,

days after rigor

mortis, staggering out the

bedroom

as if it’s a tomb

and Jesus summons,

a Frankenstein’s

plodding steps,

convoked by the

song of my people: ever-

groggy, dishevelled,

beyond any bed-

headed author of

E=mc2,

who admonishes  

morning wrens—for their

failure to do the same,

their lyric

unable to waken,

their beauty put to

shame by the smell of

beans, hand-picked

by Juan Valdez, worthy

of our worship, up before

the rooster’s grating

call to rise & shine.

Andreas Gripp

May 3, 2025

RF Image

NOTE: pschent is pronounced skent 

and was the double crown worn by

later Egyptian pharaohs.