Poem: "Pat's Place"
This poem came from the December 6, 2011 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from idhren24. It was sponsored by Shirley Barrette. "Pat's Place" is based on the apocryphal television show Schrodinger's Heroes. Visit the menu page for more about that project.
Pat's Place
Alex and Ash have their offices,
and Bailey has his workshop,
but the kitchen is Pat's place.
It's a little piece of home
amidst all the lab-white
and industrial-stainless-steel
of the Teferact compound,
an island of warm brown wood
and terra-cotta tiles.
He can cook up wonders here,
though when he's not saving the world,
he's as likely to be out roaming
the Waxahachie farmer's market
in search of fresh-picked peppers
and bunches of cilantro.
The other members of the team
gravitate to the purring coffee machine
and Pat sweeps them off their feet
into the intricate dance of the kitchen,
entices them into dicing vegetables,
slicing fruit, kneading bread.
When things have gone horribly wrong
and the mess has been scraped up
and the fires are finally out,
there will be homemade cookies
and cold milk from the dairy down the road.
No matter how many times the universe
collapses on itself like a badly folded roadmap,
everyone still needs to eat,
and if anyone were to look around
this little country kitchen with scribbles on the fridge
and ask Pat why he does it,
when he could be out heroing all the time,
he would simply smile and say,
"This is what we're fighting for."
Pat's Place
Alex and Ash have their offices,
and Bailey has his workshop,
but the kitchen is Pat's place.
It's a little piece of home
amidst all the lab-white
and industrial-stainless-steel
of the Teferact compound,
an island of warm brown wood
and terra-cotta tiles.
He can cook up wonders here,
though when he's not saving the world,
he's as likely to be out roaming
the Waxahachie farmer's market
in search of fresh-picked peppers
and bunches of cilantro.
The other members of the team
gravitate to the purring coffee machine
and Pat sweeps them off their feet
into the intricate dance of the kitchen,
entices them into dicing vegetables,
slicing fruit, kneading bread.
When things have gone horribly wrong
and the mess has been scraped up
and the fires are finally out,
there will be homemade cookies
and cold milk from the dairy down the road.
No matter how many times the universe
collapses on itself like a badly folded roadmap,
everyone still needs to eat,
and if anyone were to look around
this little country kitchen with scribbles on the fridge
and ask Pat why he does it,
when he could be out heroing all the time,
he would simply smile and say,
"This is what we're fighting for."