Baptism
                      for Matt Mullins
Thomas David Lisk

The hiss of grease kissing a griddle
or water spattering a film of boiling oil,
 
the scratchy taste of buckwheat cakes
twice the size of silver coins,
 
taste tickled in heat by the reek of bacon grease,
 
an escaping savor memory surrounds
but can’t hold to the right tongue buds,
 
elusive knowledge in a rimshot drum pop
and ching of high-hat brass, a tease marked for laughs,
 
and far from persecution or gaming for silver,
silver fish leaping in laughing water,
 
clear and undebatable,
untainted by the silver rinse of sin.
   

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