It’s Sunday. I stand as I have for countless Sundays, in the kitchen, preparing to make pancakes. It’s our ritual, our family in its various configurations over the years, continuing the traditions of my family. My Dad, stood in the kitchen and made pancakes, and I do, have done, will do the same. I wonder if I could make HEART shapes, instead of just ROUND ones. Putting on the griddle and then our plates a representation of what this means to me, to stand here, every Sunday doing this, for three (for we were three from the beginning), then for four (as we became), then three (the normal shift), and now just two (feeling empty and complete all at once). QUIRK of the wrist, an attempt to shape and curve, to vary my usual oblongs into expressions of love merely results in a small mess. I stop to SCRUB the stovetop, the edge of the griddle. Time seems suspended, layered, stopped in its
tracks. I am all ages, all versions of our family held in this single repetition of eternal Sundays, forever scrubbing, ladling, flipping. So on and so forth. You come in the kitchen. Opening cabinets, setting the table, asking again, as you have every Sunday, Is the SYRUP on the table?

Georg’ann

A CHOIR of angels couldn’t sing a song sweet enough to BREAK through, the DEVIL himself could not SPURN so foul. Who was this SURLY creature demanding more SYRUP for his pancakes?

Heather