French Press

For a whole year,
I made them coffee:
patients, doctors, and nurses

Back home,
mama had always used a French press.
I thought I knew
how to use a 'normal' coffee machine

So, for a whole year,
an entire year,
I made everyone coffee:
regular and decaf
cream and sugar

before a patient finally
tasted it,
spat it out,
gagged--
I mean eyes-bulging gagged--

and handed it back.

"This is horrible stuff!"

I went back,

tasted it myself--

the coffee I'd been making for a whole year.

Ohmygoshitwasawful

Something like really watery surströmming

Then I realized:

you can't reuse the grinds.

© 2016   Abby Danfora

Adding Insult to Injury

If you add insult to injury,

you can factor out an (in) first.

That gives in(sult+jury)

Where "Sult" is defined as 

'a village in the Gramsh municipality of Albania'

and "jury" is defined as

'a body of people who swear to give a verdict in court based on presented evidence.'

Substituting, we get:

In(a body of people who swear to give a verdict in court based on evidence + a village in the Gramsh municipality of Albania)

(remember, order of addition doesn't matter)

Expanding, we get our final answer:

In a body of people who swear to give a verdict in court based on evidence in a village in the Gramsh municipality of Albania

This is how you add insult to injury.

Café Olé

Café Olé

I fought a cup of coffee the other day.
It was the biggest fight of the century,
and it made me one of the boldest Matadores de Café
of all time.

I used the same red Christmas napkin I always use,
leftover from that time Aunt Jennifer came over
when I was three
and I'd shoved it up my nose
along with a pea and a popsicle stick
just to see if it would all fit.

My mom never approved
of my having café fights in the living room
--she had a nice white rug--
but café fights energized me like none other,
and I just couldn't give them up.

This fight though,
it was different than any of my other café fights.
I fought a bold café bravo.

Long story short,
it was hot-tempered and full of bitter resentment
after the barista left it in a tank for seven hours
and it had all but turned into an alcoholic beverage.

It took fifteen minutes,
but I finally won
and shouted café olé !
as I finished the café off
and flourished my red napkin,

The other people in the coffee shop just stared.

They must have boring lives.

© 2016   Abby Danfora