Three pancakes tall, peanut butter knife, and 
and my practice of waking up in other people's beds.

I want to talk about pancakes.
I want to talk about sleeping
underneath dough--
about soaking the house in 
the hot breath of a cast iron pan--
about waking up to the wrist of my
mother at the stove
and the gasping of the coffee machine
calling us all the kitchen--
I want to talk about
about the peanut butter knife
in the sink and 
the open bag of cinnamon raisin
bagels in the bread box.
I want to talk about
the counter of the airport 
diner back when me feet didn't
touch the ground--
My uncle 
hoisted me up on a stool
and I spun myself smooth
like the flick of a peanut butter knife--
measured myself
three pancakes high and laughed 
like the mouth of syrup cruet--
I wake up in other people's beds 
sometimes now.
No not what
you think.
I don't meet the people at all
I don't wake up as them--
I just wake up where they would be---
there in orange quilts-- teal fleece
-- look up
at a foreign ceiling--
a side table cluttered with photographs
of unremembered families
smiling at me again like syrup--
I feel just like a pancake does 
counting the rotations of a fan's orbit
around a ceiling-- 
I feel just like a knife in a sink
and I wonder if when I wake
up again this time it will
be in my own bed-- my own
warm plate three pancakes short
perched on the kitchen counter--
Oh!-- We were all breathed alive by
the glimmer of a cast iron pan 
and the absent spatula of my mother--
we all have flushed cheeks--
cover our morning burns in syrup--
laugh dangle-legged at the diner
counter-- we count biplanes
and plunge fork deep--
we're butter foreheads--
I want to talk about the bread box--
about stale rye bread
and the cinnamon raisin bagel
that waits for me when I get home
past midnight in my own bed
I set your alarm so when you wake up 
five minutes earlier you will
have extra time to listen to
the pancakes being born
and stacked like blankets 
one on one on one on
top of you to keep you warm--
to wake you up in the right
bed this time-- to remember 
the peanut butter knife askew 
in the sink--
From your bed I count six rotations
of the fan before I decide to
sleep again--
before I decide that you probably
miss it here
and I wake up again beneath
a pancake on my mother's plate--
so does not notice I'm burnt
under the wrist flick of peanut butter.
I didn't mean to see all your photos
on the end table but I
wanted to say you're tall and beautiful
and short and rapturous
whoever you are-- I wanted to say you
should wake up five minutes early each
day just to smell the pancakes--
measure yourself with a notch on 
the wall and dip syrup over
your wrists in the bathroom--
when they ask why you're late for breakfast
you can blame me-- you can blame me for waking
up to count the rotations of your
ceiling fan--
look across the diner counter
see me seeing you and you seeing
and look away-- I smell like
the cough of a coffee machine 
the crinkle of biplane
outside your bedroom window and
the cinnamon raisin bagel
patient in the bread box.