Short Stack

Short Stack

The Restaurant Menu has a picture.

Three golden brown Pancakes 

A large corn colored slice of butter

Melting on top running over the sides.

Griddle Cakes doing their best Nathalie Wood impression 

Drowning in a sea of thick maple syrup

Cartoon like ribbons of aroma rising upward.

The old man made them every Sunday morning before church.

Which he never attended

Black hair slicked back

Partially stained white Dago-Tee 

Cigarette dangling from his lips.

The ash worming longer with each Popeye exhale

From the side of his mouth

Large bowl on his left hip 

Attacking the batter with grunts of enthusiasm.

Tattoos on his arms flexing larger then smaller

Giving the appearance  they were dancing.

Tatted when he was a Cook in the Navy

During World War II.

I imagined him storming the beaches of the South Pacific

With spatula in hand 

"Don't need to cut'em  with a damn knife.

Use your fork "

He'd holler wrestling the knife from my hand

Then throwing it into the sink.

Slapping the back of my head in anger

No Waitress wait!

I'll have the Waffles instead

With strawberries if you have them.

Yes, Waffles 

We never had a Waffle Iron.

Judge Santiago Burdon

©2018