Kelli Russell Agodon is the author of several poetry collections, including Hourglass Museum and Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room, winner of the White Pine Press Poetry Prize. She is also coauthor of The Daily Poet: Day-by-Day Prompts for Your Writing Practice and coeditor of Fire on Her Tongue: An Anthology of Contemporary Women’s Poetry. Born and raised in Seattle, Agodon received her MFA from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writing Workshop. She lives in Washington State.

Americano

by Kelli Russell Agodon

April is not the cruelest month
     but the cruelest barista
            who didn’t smile back,
who misspelled my name
     and rolled her eyes
            when she thought customers
weren’t watching. Sometimes coffee
     is the color of ruin, sometimes dust.

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