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 a Nathalie Wood impersonation
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.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2021

Poem

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