CRAVINGS. by Chani Zwibel

I crave food from places that aren’t there anymore

Fish sandwiches from Wolf’s Tavern-, with the antipasto salad,

Steak hoagies with the pepperoncini from Dairy Delight,

I couldn’t even drive to get them if I wanted to:

669.18 miles, 10 hours and 18 minutes, up 75 North like an artery through the Appalachians;

All night through the rising peaks,

And they’d still be closed.

I’d still need a time machine to go back to 1994,

To find the blue dusk gone to black night, drawn down around me like a crocheted blanket,

To find my father alive, and happy-drunk, to find my mother in rare form with a slow smile, to find my sister a happy toddler

And those family meals, afterwards a cartoon movie on video, rented from Giant Eagle

But no such machine exists, except my memory as a vehicle, speeding through the years and the miles to find

Fish sandwiches from Wolf’s Tavern, with the antipasto salad,

Steak hoagies with the pepperoncini from Dairy Delight.

Chani Zwibel is the author of Cave Dreams to Star Portals. She is an associate editor with Madness Muse Press. She is a graduate of Agnes Scott College, who was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but now dwells in Marietta, Georgia, with her husband and their dog. She co-hosts an open mic night called Poetry and Palette once a month at The Good Acting Studio in Marietta.