Methane Lakes Poem by gershon hepner

If you should make me methane latkes
I’ll give you a most cold and fat kiss,
cold because the methane’s freezing,
and fat to show you I am teasing
bestowing kisses like the oil
that most make latkes with. Don’t spoil
potatoes that you’re frying: use
an oil that’s kosher for the Jews,
for most blow methane when they fart,
which send the climate off the chart,
as cows do with their eructations,
which causes forest conflagrations.

If I would make this poem manicker
you might not have a happy Hanukkah,
so I’ll stop here and hope no meth-
ane will be found between your teeth
when you eat latkes in December,
and hopefully these lines remember.

Inspired by a misunderstanding of Monica Osborne when reading my poem “Methane Lakes Upon a Moon of Saturn”. She told me that she thought I had written “Methane Latkes”.

9/24/09