Jake Goldwasser

GRIDDLE

Chilly as April out.
What’ll it be? 
                        The usual, Deb.
                        Pancakes. Three.

Tea on your skillet
and toast in your cup?
                        I met my true love
                        sunny side up.

What would you like
on the side, my dear?
                        My sackcloth were lace.
                        My love were still here.

What’s sweeter than syrup
and tougher than gristle?
                        Sorrow, the ocean,
                        my true love, and thistle.

And what will it take
to recover the wreck?
                        A week and a day
                        and the shirt off my back.

JAKE GOLDWASSER is a poet and cartoonist from the Hudson Valley. His work has appeared in the New England Review, The New Yorker, and Oxford Poetry. He lives in Iowa City, where he is pursuing MFAs in poetry and literary translation at the University of Iowa.