My Husband’s Restaurant Choices

Photographer - Tobi Brun

My Husband’s Restaurant Choices

Our first date was at Chili’s, a nice chain restaurant in Starkville, Mississippi, not far from our town of West Point. I remember that my husband didn’t say much, so I didn’t say much
either. We had a good meal and even shared a chocolate brownie with ice cream for dessert. I had a nice time. I thought we got along well, and enjoyed each other’s company, even though we
didn’t talk much, when on dining dates. But somehow, after we got married, the restaurants we frequented became less and less familiar to me, further and further away, and more and more like country buffets and soul food, with less ambiance, no style, American Flags, Elvis statues, and old Mississippi flags with the confederate symbol still on them.

What happened?

For Jimmy’s birthday I was invited to eat at a steakhouse in Columbus, Mississippi with some of his family. He chose a few family members to join him for his birthday meal. We went to Old Hickory Steakhouse. This is where he gets his favorite steak. The best steak anywhere around. The best steak ever made. I realized after a while, that Jimmy’s going out to eat had nothing to do with the
restaurant. It was all about the food. And when he got a hankering for a certain food, he would not sit still until we were on our way to go and get that food, everything else be damned. When
he got a craving for catfish, we would either go to Pheba’s Diner, out past our house, or all the way out near Aberdeen, Mississippi to The Friendship House. And Jimmy never talked to me
when we dined out. He just ate. He would ask me where I wanted to eat. I would answer with some really tasteful restaurant that had atmosphere and Pinot Grigio for me to drink and relax, back when I drank alcohol. Then he would suggest a new restaurant that he wanted to try out, way out somewhere, and the question of where I wanted to eat was just a formality. I would go, even though I dreaded the experience, and the food. It became interesting to me to see how these places were built and to see their decor. Outside there was usually a lot of metal siding. Inside, there was wood. Lots of wood paneling. Some of these restaurants were in huge tin warehouses, or small buffets with soul food. There were wagon wheels and signs on the walls with sayings like,

“Welcome, Y’all!”

I was deflated a bit each time we went to one of his restaurants. It chipped away at my soul and didn’t help our marriage. Jimmy would eat and eat and would not speak. I grew weary of this and we finally started eating at places we could both enjoy. The new Longhorn Steakhouse in Columbus was one, with its cattle motif. We ate often at Little Dooey’s in Starkville, which is a hodgepodge of signs and framed photographs and rooms with tables and chairs, added on, but the food was really, really good. And Mexican restaurants were fair game. As the years went by, I coaxed Jimmy to talk some as he ate, to notice the interiors of the restaurants, and to allow me to eat at restaurants of my choosing. I became vegan, so steakhouses were no longer an option unless they had salads. Now when Jimmy gets the sudden desire to go eat at one of his faraway restaurants or a new restaurant that he wants to try out, he asks his family members to go with him. I simply do not go. I reached my limit.

After twelve years of marriage, many years of cooking deer steaks and cornbread at home, and traveling to remote locales to try out a buffet with steak and fried everything, including frog legs, I know what Jimmy likes in a restaurant, and he knows what I like. I stopped cooking for him after a while, and now we get groceries for meals that we can prepare together. He has learned to speak with me when we have lunch or dinner. But he has a few manners that need changing. He will talk with his mouth full, he wipes his nose and mouth with a napkin and doesn’t fold the napkin over, and leaves it on the table, and the worst part of all that I’ve had to get accustomed to, is that he eats like a prisoner. Yes, he hovers over his plate with his elbows or arms on the table on either side of his plate, and he doesn’t hold his fork properly. He shovels it all in quickly, while having to have a piece of bread or cornbread in his left hand the entire time, from which to take a bite, in between feeding his face. I’m sorry, reader, for speaking this way about my husband, but this is so pronounced that I cannot let this go unsaid. I finally learned that the reason he eats this way is because he grew up in a large family with eight siblings. And out of habit. I cannot change this about him. Believe me, I’ve tried. Jimmy was diagnosed with microscopic colitis and celiac disease and was supposed to eat gluten free. He went through a spell when his digestive system was acting up, which doesn’t happen much now, and once, after we ate at La Fiesta Bravo in town, we left the restaurant and he vomited right in front of the restaurant where he was clearly visible to everyone on the highway and many people coming from and going in the restaurant. This was horrible. I felt
terrible for him but we laughed about it wondering what the wait staff at the restaurant must have thought, or the customers—that the food must have been really bad. What an embarrassing thing
to happen, to regurgitate out front. This happened on at least three occasions, which was not a good advertisement for their restaurant.

We dine out quite often now, and we have learned to tolerate many things from each other. Now I care more about the food than before, noticing my own cravings and hunger. We
talk a lot, and Jimmy cares more about the type of establishment in which we dine. I watch his eating habits which have not changed. But Jimmy eats more healthily—more salads and
vegetables. We eat in Starkville quite often, and much to my disdain, we sometimes eat at the Friendship House where the food is good, but the people and atmosphere are foreign to me. Jimmy likes the catfish at The Ritz’s Magnolia Restaurant downtown, thank goodness, because I see people I know, when we dine there sometimes. And as our relationship has improved, Jimmy is eating healthier.

I love to visit Jimmy’s sister and brother-in-law on the Coast. We have our favorite places to go for good seafood. We went to a restaurant called Parish. That’s Paris with an “h.” It was expensive. The food was great, I had a lot in common with the waitress who was an artist, and we drank a lot of wine and beer. And we laughed. We laughed so much it hurt. We had so much fun. As we were leaving we noticed a lounge in the restaurant. We looked in and decided to sit in the lounge to continue our evening there. We ordered dessert drinks. We laughed again non-stop, and had the best time. It was a night I’ll never forget. We have dined out at the ——Oyster, and several other great restaurants, including Commander’s Palace, in New Orleans where our niece
lives. We ate at Lebanon's quite often, and we recently found a great Thai restaurant, Pomelo. Every dining out experience is different with Jimmy. I think I’ve raised the bar a bit for his restaurant selections now. He likes Taste, a really chic restaurant in Starkville, Mississippi, and several other places that seem posh compared to what we were used to. I don’t drink alcohol anymore so that cuts down on the total cost. I like to see Jimmy enjoying his meals. He has become more aware of his surroundings and he likes most of the places I like, which is an achievement on my part. I know we will continue to dine out and hope that our experiences will become more enjoyable.

Jimmy has recently started speaking even more to me during our meals. This is a historic achievement. But he still lacks table manners which may never change, but I am hopeful. I know
one thing: Dining out with Jimmy is never boring. And that makes up for any of his lack of restaurant refinement.

Jane Dill is an emerging writer from Mississippi. She has an MFA in Creative Writing, an MA in French, and a BA in Fine Arts. She travels often to Paris.

‘To A Student’

Photographer - Tobi Brun

To a student who wrote that poetry is an ineffective way of providing social commentary because “if it was effective then why do all these social problems exist.” Allow me to answer your question.

Perhaps it’s because students don’t take the time to read them, students who plagiarize their way through the school year whilst proudly proclaiming none of this is relevant to their future. Perhaps it’s because people put on blinders so they can only see the white tips of their shoes and ignore everything that they see as “unnecessary.” If it has no worth in this moment to you, it
must have no worth at all. But where will you turn when you’re hurting so deep that your very soul aches in your chest? Will your biology textbook be there to show you that you are not alone? Will you find solace in computing a mathematical equation when your world crumbles around you?

If you truly have not felt your heart fall into your shoes, if your knees have never buckled from the weight of the baggage you carry, then I am happy for you. I am so glad you have never experienced sitting awake at 12am with fresh tears on your face and loneliness hogging your covers, wondering if ever in history anyone has been where you have been.

Society has told you The Cure surely must lie within the web of social networks and so you turn on your phone but only find empty inboxes and timelines full of smiling faces.

But perhaps there, in the endless tide of photoshopped scenes, you will find a voice that shares your pain. Perhaps you will hear the flow of stanzas in a new light when your soul is what’s hurting. At 15 years old, you know so little about the world and even about yourself. Times will come when your boat is rocked and the sea of life threatens to swallow you whole. In those times, I offer you this poem as a reminder that you are a dynamic being. That you can choose to be different, to evolve. And that poetry is there to hold you when arms are not enough.

See, Poetry is not the solution, but the salve. We need legislative action and community building to do most of the work. Instead poetry is there to remind you that when life kicks you down, you are not alone. When the world tells you that you aren’t enough, it is there to tell you that you are made of stardust and held together by magic. You are a wondrous creature alive on this beautiful planet and that is enough. Poetry is there to comfort, to inspire, and if nothing else, to allow the writer to find their own peace.

I will not apologize for sharing this all with you because for every kid like you I have five who are hurting and looking for the rest that poetry provides. The world is full of so many demons and so much pain. I am no exorcist, but these two hands will always be there to press this page against the wounds of those who fall. If poetry is not for you, I wish you no I’ll will. There are plenty of things I dislike too. But what I will not entertain is the disparagement of something I need to survive like water on my lips and food in my belly. For I know, through all the poems you disdain, that I am not alone. May you find the same comfort.

Natianna Ohmart is a high school English teacher in Independence, Missouri. She lives in a little blue house stuffed full of five cats, one psychotic dog, and an untold number of houseplants. She finds her purpose in advocating for and implementing anti-bias teaching and encouraging young writers to find their voice.

‘Chai’ & ‘A Wish of Desire’

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Chai

two,
my grandmother bathed me with milk and haldi,
rubbed my skin with atta to remove hair
she said it was to brighten my skin
the one that resembled my ancestors'
the one that resembled the colour of chai.

six,
I was forced to dress up in pink frocks with floral patterns,
small sarees and kurtas with the cham-cham of my payal.
it was to teach me,
it was to make sure I understood how to be appealing.

twelve,
I told my mother to buy me skincare products,
'fair and lovely' always had a place on my dresser.
fourteen,
I was told,
not to wear shorts
to stop hugging my brother

to start helping my mother in the kitchen
to realise I was older now.

sixteen,
I started covering up my body
the dark patches on my skin.
the years of hurt on my arms,
with the kurtas of floral prints.

eighteen,
I found my sweet escaped
the one I had been yearning for
I had everything I wanted
I thought
I was complete
I thought
I now yearned for chai
I thought.

twenty-one,
I started wearing sarees,
with bangles on my hands
I started wearing suits with a red bindi between the kajal-laden eyes.
I started to love myself again,
I started drinking chai again.

A Wish of Desire

If I had a wish, I would wish to experience the minute moments in life
The moment that taught me what happiness meant.
I would return to memories filled with nonsensical chatter,
With little bouts of joy completed with salt caressing my chin.
When I tried to savour my half-melted popsicle in the July air,
Back to basking in the sun during December afternoons.
If I could relive my moments with you.
I would return to diving into the swimming pool,
Giggling under forts of weighted blankets and pillows,
To falling off my bicycle,
To dancing in the rain,
And jumping into puddles that make water splash onto your face.
To meet you all over again
Longing to return to my memories of you.
The memories that leave me blissfully dreaming about you.
The memories that I find to be abstract yet stunning.
In these moments, time stood still
They painted a masterpiece filled with hues of my happiness.

Sehaj Dhingra is a fifteen-year-old high school junior who enjoys writing poetry and wishes to share her work with the world. She writes about her connection with nature and her heritage. Her inspirations include authors and poets including Jhumpa Lahiri, Rupi Kaur, and Maya Angelou. She wishes to showcase her poetry and art in different forms so that everyone may be able to relate to it in one way or another.

‘Half-Life of a Birthday Gift’, ‘Geography’ & ‘Math’

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Half-Life of a Birthday Gift

Green sweater
with rough cuffs
reads
World’s Greatest Grandpa
in cracked print
between
one of eight coatracks
at the local Goodwill
until a freshman girl
purchases said garment
for the upcoming
funny sweater kegger.

Geography

She’s Argentina and I’m Chile
as blue duvet crashes
atop only her pale coasts.
There’s a sea on my side
but limited to 5 am skies
behind windowpanes.
She is tropical everywhere
except her legs which is why
my feet are buried under
Patagonia sweaters while I shiver
into Easter Island stone
yet there’s no border
I’d rather share than between
our two bodies of water.

Math

Dad set the clocks in the house five minutes fast
so on-time and late were synonyms in his thesaurus
which he’d recite other pages at loud registers.
I subtracted that number from every value
as neighbor’s addresses shifted the next door down
and I was never sure if dad turned into
the right parking lot driving five over the limit.
The night before I’d have nightmares about
forgetting my locker combo and for the first
couple tries you could’ve convinced me
that I overslept and was late to class
where every A- on a quiz was a B+ and
I only got 100’s on projects with extra credits.
During football practice, I’d over pull my gap
where there was no teammate to block and
I’d hear Dad’s yell again but in a thick, Jersey accent.
On the sideline I’d watch the cheerleaders
work on their choreography and how
they all moved their left leg, then their right,
before moving their left leg again
to the unpredictable beats of dubstep until
locking eyes with the girl I once overheard
describe me to her cheer partners as a five.

Will Neuenfeldt studied English at Gustavus Adolphus College and his poems are published in Capsule Stories, Months to Years, and Red Flag Poetry. He lives in Cottage Grove, MN, home of the dude who played Steven Stifler in those American Pie movies and a house Teddy Roosevelt slept in. Instagram.com/wjnpoems.

‘Biking the Big River Trail on the First Warm Sunday in March’, ‘Wrought’ & ‘Opossum’

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Biking the Big River Trail on the First Warm Sunday in March

the ride was not without surprises:
a man’s long white beard was being conjured by the wind before it parted
and shot over his shoulders; heading in the opposite direction, another man,

in his golden years, zipped past on a unicycle; melting remnants
of snow beside the path revealed that someone had lost their sole,
one black memory foam insert, separated from its mate.

Approaching Pickerel Lake, sunlight danced on the water beside
a blackened shoreline where a recent controlled burn left the soil rich,
fertile, primed for new growth. As I turned my bike around for the return ride,

I was fortified by a recollection from my childhood in Colorado Springs:
the great-niece of Helen Hunt Jackson,who, well into her eighties,
pedaled around town on a fixed-gear bike, poised, in a skirt
and matching blazer, pillbox hat pinned atop her steel gray hair.

Bracing against the wind, I pedaled uphill and into my sixth decade.

Wrought

Fearfully and wonderfully made,
at the core, we are palindromes.
Knit in our mothers’ wombs,
x and y chromosomes lining
up in repeat sequences,
flowing in both directions,
inhabiting every cell,
we unfold in symmetry.

Then there is the eye —
mirror unto itself,
window to the soul,
portal through which light enters.

From the outside,
our bodies are matchy-matchy,
like glossy catalog pages
of families wearing coordinated
Christmas pajamas;

limbs and sense organs complementing
each other in bilateral pairs:
eyes, hands, knees, ears, feet, nostrils.

It is the heart that shows the first visible asymmetry.

Opossum

I peer into morning’s blackness as my breath
fogs the windowpane adding a halo
to the glow of the street lamp.

Overnight, snowfall has covered everything
in undisturbed brilliance. The velvet brown
branches of the sumac are laced in whiteness.

Streets, sidewalks, rooftops dazzle
with the purity of a holy winter night. Inside,
on the verge of attending to the mundane:
feeding the dogs, making coffee,
preparing for the work day,

I almost miss the constellation
of tiny, star-shaped footprints
advancing across the front steps,
tail mark dragging behind

trailing winter magic in its wake.

Julie Martin lives near the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers. Her work has recently appeared in the following journals: The Talking Stick, Pasque Petals, Plants and Poetry, Agates, and The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative. With poet and artist River Urke, she co-hosts Up Close: Meet the Poet Behind the Verse, a quarterly program that showcases the work of local poets in the Twin Cities and beyond. Read more of her work at JulieMartinpoet.com.

‘Paradise is Burning’, ‘On the Road to Emerald City’ & ‘Greyscale’

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Paradise is Burning

Prosperity pinches at the sides of purpose
Teeth pulling to the profiteer
Oh, why me? They shout treating philanthropy as penance
Pacify their pessimism for paradise is burning
And passion is not measured by the weight of one's purse

On the Road to Emerald City

White knuckled I gripped the smaller half of a wishbone
A receipt with a hastily scribbled number and a heart
That would never text back
But I, the larger half of a hope

In your clenched hand, three-quarters of a smile
A number stuffed in my pocket with keys of Tin Man fingers
Wrapped around a paper heart
And you, the smaller half of a promise

I was given the gift receipt for the medals Oz gave to the lion
As if courage could be bought with store credit
Fluorescent lights and rows and rows of ruby-red slippers
Selling the dream of no place like home

She will get her whole smile
When yellow bricks turn to gold
Tell King Midas, gold means nothing to a kingdom of statues

Greyscale

The color before blue
Not everything has meaning like it used to
Point out the charm of my favorite artists

Eyes too small for a face
They have shrunk
Let my world build plaque on the gums

Like a first word, I’ll go out with a gargle
False hope of holy water
Fluid in my lungs
Undrying a worm in the sun

A weather vane still turns when no ones home
When no one tends to the garden
The birds still bathe in dirty water

And dogs still smile at the rainbow in greyscale

William Weiss is a writer hailing from Pasadena, California. He works with disabled adults to help expand their capabilities and possibilities, and as a musician, he loves the rhythm behind words and the diverse dialog of interpretation poetry brings. You can often find William brooding over a line under his desk, sitting on his desk, on the floor, in a crowded elevator, or really any place that he has a second to think. He is a recently published poet in The Broadkill Review as well as Oprelle Publications, and a semifinalist in the Philadelphia Stories’ National Prize in Poetry.

‘The Home I Love’, ‘Still Life’ & ‘A Message to the Giants’

Photographer - Tobi Brun

The Home I Love

Everything looks like

Western Pennsylvania to

The traveler from

Western Pennsylvania, so

He believes he has

Seen the world.

It is as if he

Is pursued by an endless

Sea of relatives,

And the dangers of

Distant lands are only those

Reflected in his

Sunglasses. So he is lost

Among identical roads.

Still Life

Center: chowder in

A fat, white bowl, bits of fish

Cut in sluices lumped

Over the pale lip;

Left: a folded corner of

The tablecloth, that

Deep, speckled blue the

Color of unbroken waves;

Right: the slab of bread

Slathered with cream-gold

Butter, long lines laid across

Its crusted hillside.

A Message to the Giants

Play leapfrog across

Lake Erie, if you have to;

If the Ohio

Is not enough. Step

Side to side, one country to

The next, but be sure

To account for homes

Along the way. No-one likes

To be woken up

By an ecstatic

Big toe squashing the bedroom,

Let alone the death.

But I doubt you can hear me,

Your airplane eyes coasting from

Cloud to cloud, your golden hair

Growing, careless, unchained, and

My voice as small as it is.

Caleb Haas is an emerging poet from the Pittsburgh area, working on his first chapbook: "One to Another".

‘All the Times One Wanted to Walk Away’ & ‘Burial Rites’

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Burial Rites 

It begins when home soil is raided, 

the reminder that no earthly dwelling is safe 

from infiltration. Inundating Rain storms 

the barracks of root and clay until all organisms 

are flushed out. And when the bodies of so many 

worms are lined up for execution on the cobblestone 

crematorium, the mocking sun doing its worst, they are granted 

no urn save for the trapping labyrinths of shoe soles. 

And when passersby do trample and stomp on 

and past the massacred and the still-writhing displaced, 

unsure if it is Rain or Worm to blame for the littered 

pathway (we were not outside during the storm, after all) 

the grass blades shake from the shock of slaughter and plead: 

if anyone is listening above, may He remove the Worm Crushers’ 

hearts of stone and give them hearts of flesh! so that someone 

may look upon the site in horror, extend the courageous hand 

that will transport the lifeless worms to Sod, will dig graves 

of moss and mulch for their home burial, and will not stop, 

despite scornful stares of onlookers, until each corpse 

has met its proper resting place. 

All the Times One Wanted to Walk Away

In Vienna, you thought it too profound to say love me.

Of our divine inferno, as you called it, I loved

being its prisoner and your beautiful disregard

of it: your reprimands lingering in the air’s orange perfume,

my soft weeping the lullaby to which you fell asleep,

your thundering snores the denouement of our evening. 

The banisters sang songs of ardor for the descent of

Eros, their oak reddened like my lipstick pigment

and the steps creaking in coital harmonies. 

When you scoffed yet descended the stairs after him.

On a San Giorgio veranda, we shared breakfast—

colazione, you ameliorated—

my love ever as hot as the mocha espresso,

as tempting as spreading all the gianduja cream 

atop my biscuits, leaving none for you.

When I twirled the knife in the juice

of the jar, replaying our joust of yesternight, pleading: 

Darling, do not forget I am your mosque; 

Let horrors nesting in Past’s loins be our charm,

Let them mature into things you love: cherries, boutiques.

Venture! Let us organisms dance in the aggrandizement. 

Then, Venice—how their servants welcomed you, 

thinking you a crucifer imported, a blessing from Karlskirche!

when you are merely a postulant, rendered immobile

in your waiting to secure my love, my approval

dangling before your tongue. 

Our voyage along the Venetian lagoon

where I collected stolen glances from the gondolier,

my pulse thumping like its rudder when your

possessive grasp landed on my neck, held

as you doused my cheek with a smacker. 

Oh, all the times one wanted to walk away!

Though I am rendered defenseless like the Simonists

of Dante’s Hell, plunged into the ground, their feet ablaze,

just as my heart is afire for your wiles and you. 

Blake Harrsch is a poet corporeally in New Jersey with a writer’s heart determined to capture stories beyond temporal bounds. She is an English Literature Master's candidate and writing instructor at Seton Hall University. @blakeharrsch, blakeharrsch.com.