Butter up those onions.
You think flavor sticks
to your ribs without it?
I’ve cooked for ten thousand men
at once, four days a week.
You can’t tell me I don’t know
how to handle my kitchen.
I was flipping pancakes
before your daddy even gave up
his action figures, sport.
Filled with the spirit of anticipated emotion and wrought
from the steel of our enchanted brethren, we collapse
before the final charade ever takes the stage.
So why do we care? Do we have a stake in the matter?
Are we rushing around for good reason, or are we
concluding too early that life is a challenge
to be conquered, beaten into submission?
Can’t we savor it just for a minute?
A minute is all I ask.
You waltz along,
123 123 123,
sticking your tongue out at me.
Do you want me to join you?
Are you being a tease?
My issue with this is no small thing.
You can waltz along, sure,
that’s no skin off my teeth.
Just give me the essence
of the message you’re sending
so I don’t spend the rest
of my spring and summer days
waiting for something
that may or may not be true.
Fall out of that lovely turnip hole soil
and cough up that dirt, we’re not poor.
No, we’re not leaving this place just yet.
I have to feel something warmer than that.
Warmer than what? A ground pepper flake
on the tip of your tongue or a flypaper
waxing session, somewhere in between.
You can’t do it yourself, it’s not a surprise.
No, we have to wait. Didn’t you bring a book?
You really should read more. Yeah, really.
I don’t mean to come off as arrogant! Come on,
how long have we known each other? I give you tips
that I hope will help you to be the best you.
What’s so bad about that?
Aside from looking like a nerd…
A sexy nerd?
That’s better, let’s go with that.
For Fern:
This is the biggest unicycle in the world, seventeen-feet long and manufactured only for display purposes. If your ceilings aren’t high enough to accommodate such a generous gift, I’d be willing to take it off your hands. Don’t try to ride it, I broke three ribs that way.
Love,
Grandpa
Lunging farther than the snow should allow requires skill to the extent of a jaguar mixed with a polar bear during the warmest months in the Arctic Circle, but it’s not really that difficult if you have faith in yourself.
Or is it?
He just hangs over that plate,
about to put the fork in the pantry
when a loathsome crouton grins and bares its fangs.
You wouldn’t think it was much of a man-eater,
blood had never touched its lips. Poor Chip. Poor poor Chip.
If only he hadn’t forgotten where the forks go.
WHARVED 