Cane Syrup
I meet a man with many missing teeth
in the Maryland panhandle
he serves me pancakes with a Dixie accent
says if he had his way I would pour
cane syrup rather than maple sugar from the table
tracing this preference to his people having cut cane
on the Brazos
They worked from sunup until past dark
sweat so slick in muck so thick it made them
think tree sugar thin and cold clearly Yankee
and therefore inferior
He tells me what I eat should put a fire in my belly
a divine blaze like that angel who took the hand
of baby Moses when he reached for gold placed it
on ashes so the Deliverer scalded his tongue
then sucked his fingers until
Like my waiter
he required dentures.
- © Jeremy Nathan Marks 2023
Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in the Great Lakes Region of Canada. He is the author of Of Fat Dogs & Amorous Insects (Alien Buddha Press, 2021).
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