Over the Top

You like potayto, and I like potahto

You like tomayto, and I like tomahto

—Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers

Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off

(written by George & Ira Gershwin)

I tell you that silly

little ditty

could last forever:

You love avacaydo, I love avacawdo

You stop me in my tracks

before the boxcar’s off the rail:

no one says avacay do, let alone

spreads it on their toast.

You smoke tobacco, I smoke tobaycco

You fume I must be smoking

something else.

I think I’m most adoring

when annoying, but this one’s

gone too far, even for me—

You say hurray! I say hurrah!

You say okay. I say okah.

The orbiting hawk above us

senses prey—a diminutive

mouse astray, the hop of a

beaded frog—

or us, a love that

teeter-totters  

on the brim:

you say that it’s a seesaw

I say that’s something

seen

then out-of-sight—

like mice,

a train,

that gleam inside your

iris when you laugh—

lawfter Gershwin penned

in just a jiffy. It never

really mattered

who was who 

at least to you—

just the stress

on a cunning vowel, a quip

or jest habitually

out of place.

Andreas Gripp

September 22, 2025

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