Happy Mac-N-Cheese Day!

If you’re a Poetry Friday regular, you already know that today is National Macaroni and Cheese Day. Leave it to Tabatha to suggest a Poetry Friday Mac-n-Cheese celebration (yes, that same Tabatha who organizes the splendid Summer Poetry Swap–more about the poetry treasures I’ve received in a late summer post.)

I make a mean macaroni and cheese, and we enjoy eating it fairly regularly around here. But my pasta love was really not inspiring much poetry love, so I started brainstorming other ideas. A detective named Mac N. Cheese? A worm named Mac who toiled through cheesy soil? Hmmm…maybe not. Here’s where my brainstorming eventually led:

Mac and Cheese (A Love Story)

Mac loved Cheese.
She rubbed his ears.
She brushed his fuzzy back.

Rafa, who belongs to a friend, stays at Camp Buffy when her family is away. She turned into a swamp monster in her younger days, while searching for a run-away ball. I can’t find the photographic evidence.

Cheese loved Mac.
He licked her face.
His tail went thwack-a-thwack!

Let’s play ball!
Cheese nudged Mac’s hand.
She threw it long and hard.

Cheese bounded off,
a furry streak
across the grassy yard,

sniffing here,
zipping there—
a wild, zigzag romp,

down the hill,
past the fence,
into the neighbor’s swamp….

Rafa and Dakota, the resident hound, staying out of the swamp.

Stop! yelled Mac.
but Cheese ran on
through deep and sticky muck,

goo and gush,
oozy slime
‘til Cheese’s legs were stuck!

Mac arrived
with leash in hand.
She clipped it on his collar,

picked him up
and hauled him home.
She didn’t gripe or holler.

Cheese’s fur
was thick with crud,
and smelly as a skunk.

Mac washed Cheese
(Cheese soaked Mac.)
No more grime and gunk.

Dakota, at the edge of the yard and swamp. Good dog!

Mac loved Cheese.
She rubbed his ears.
She brushed his furry back.

Cheese loved Mac.
He licked her face.
His tail went thwack-a-thwack!
–©Buffy Silverman, 07/14/2017

I can’t wait to read what other poems have been cooked up for today! Visit The Opposite of Indifference to find all the delicious offerings.

24 thoughts on “Happy Mac-N-Cheese Day!

  1. Stopping by late to say: This is adorable! Your poem reminds me of Victoria Coe’s FENWAY AND HATTIE series of young middle grade books about a girl and her terrier puppy.

  2. What a fun pair! (Rafa looks like she’s saying, “Lies, all lies! It wasn’t me!) I love poems with happy endings. 🙂

  3. I’m in love with that “thwack-a-thwack” tail!

    It’s so fun to see all the directions this crazy theme is taking us!

  4. What a delightful tale of Mac and Cheese, Buffy. I, too, thought this would make a great start for a children’s book. Now, in rereading the poem, I thought about the title, and smiled.

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