Poetry Friday: Short Order Cook

Sometimes life is just this simple, and just this hard, and just this rewarding:

Short Order Cook 
by Jim Daniels

An average joe comes in
and orders thirty cheeseburgers and thirty fries.

I wait for him to pay before I start cooking.
He pays.
He ain't no average joe.

The grill is just big enough for ten rows of three.
I slap the burgers down
throw two buckets of fries in the deep frier
and they pop pop spit spit...
psss...
The counter girls laugh.
I concentrate.
It is the crucial point—
they are ready for the cheese:

(Read the rest here, at The Writer's Almanac.)


The round up this week is at The Miss Rumphius Effect.