JC Alfier

Morning Shift

Summer’s measured in blossoms fallen to the base of a mason jar.
The kitchen’s heat steams its fog beneath her apron.

Her muscles ache so bad they groan.
She stares at the calendar by the cashier,

eyes fixed on some future day
as if it will truly be different.

Her expression’s hard to make out, eyes diverted
from customers as if evading a sandstorm.

She hovers over the dinettes and booths, carafe
held up like a chalice.

No a/c at home, she swims the river at night —
cottonmouths be damned.

She opens tinned fish for supper, again for breakfast.
Night is a moon-scoured window.

Come morning, she’ll grab a clean apron,
a red ribbon to hold up black hair,

ignore the run in her stockings,
shield her eyes under a fluttering haze of sparrows.

JC Alfier’s (they/them) most recent book of poetry, The Shadow Field, was published by Louisiana Literature Press (2020). Journal credits include The Emerson Review, Faultline, New York Quarterly, Notre Dame Review, Penn Review, Southern Poetry Review, and Vassar Review. They are also an artist doing collage and double-exposure work.