Rakija (Again)
My grandmother-in-law likes to tell us
the same stories after dinner, the years
clear as the windows of our glasses,
filled again with the firewater made
from winemaking’s remains: seeds,
stems, and skins. Faint grape fumes
wafting mirage-like into our nostrils
as she recounts how she and her husband
fled the Communists of Yugoslavia
and came to America with one suitcase,
nine dollars, and the infant daughter
she gave birth to at a refugee camp
in Lazio, by herself on a stretcher
in an empty hallway. Can you imagine?
she asks, and we nod to the refrain,
her signature dish of gnocchi and ragu,
her tall and handsome husband, Milan,
the front desk manager of a fancy hotel
in Manhattan, lying in a hospital bed,
moving his head left for yes, and right
for no. On a first name basis with Maria
Callas and John Lennon, he once told
a rude cashier, “If you aren’t beautiful,
at least be kind.” Can you imagine? He was
hit by a truck while out on a jog, woke up
in the hospital paralyzed from the neck
down, and died a year and a half later.
Maybe her stories never grow old
to her because she comes from a time
and place where nothing goes to waste:
fig leaves dried for tea, parmesan rinds
for stock, spent grapes swung into moon-
shine. Windows in which our ghostly
reflections like to make us remember,
mouthing words in the dark to faces
framed on the wall. We can’t imagine,
but one day we will. Poured from
an unlabeled bottle, her husband’s
rakija blooms again in our chests
like the fiery, fruit-bearing cherry tree
that used to grow in their front yard.
It All Falls Apart at a Buc-ee’s in Alabama
Weary from the road and abandoning
all hope for a better spot to stop and eat,
my wife and I finally decided to brave
this Babylon of gas and branded merch,
southern Shangri-la where the flavors
of beef jerky and the varieties of fudge
are more dazzling than glossolalia
from a revenant toddler’s tongue.
In the irresistible humidity we felt
giddy against our will as we passed
the bronze statue of the red-capped
bucktoothed beaver.
After taking a pee
in what I was assured were the “cleanest
restrooms in the country,” and being tempted
to buy everything from swimming trunks
to throw pillows, I gravitated toward
the Texas Round Up Station, lured
by unctuous, slow-smoked aromas
and the sound of big knives smacking
against plastic cutting boards. A posse
of teens in yellow cowboy hats shouted
in cracked, half-hearted unison, “Brisket
on the board!” as ribbons of sauce rained
from on high, slathering meat betwixt
the chop and shuffle of their blades.
Outside, all kinds were taking selfies
with the beaver’s monolithic golden
calf: sorority sisters in matching Crocs;
keg-chested men giving beefy thumbs up.
We sat with our sandwiches on our car’s
backend, and just as the gelatinous gob
of chopped brisket smacked my lips,
an indistinct white flash went hauling ass
across the parking lot: a middle-aged
woman in cut-off jeans and a tank-top
screaming, “No, no!” as a yoked-up cop
commanded, “Stop, stop, ma’am, stop!”
her flip flops click-clacking on the blacktop,
bleached blonde hair streaming behind her
like a contrail.
And as she tried to slip
into her white Jeep Grand Cherokee,
fumbling with her keys, the cop unholstered
his taser, and drove 50,000 volts
into her body, sending her spasming
like a hooked brook trout until she went
limp, curled into the fetal position on the oil-
slicked pavement.
By now the entire mass
in the massive parking lot was watching
with what, perhaps, can only be called
delight, a flotilla of phones capturing
the woman’s cries, an old man chuckling
as he passed by, “Nobody fucks with Buc-ee.”
I took another bite, the meat swimming
in overly sweetened sauce, the flavors
mumbling in jumbo monotone, the hard
muscles of the cow rendered into a singular
riff of softness, grease the color of orange
Gatorade dribbling down my chin,
and staining my t-shirt.
Though the woman
was already in cuffs, already in the back
of the cop’s SUV, at least six more Chargers
galloped into the lot for this lone, unarmed
shoplifter, the arresting officer getting
handshakes, fist bumps, even hugs from men
who seemed to believe they were braving
danger like marshals at the Okay-Corral,
or maybe more like archangels lighting
up Sodom, all of us watching our world
with sodium-encrusted gazes, this garden
we’ve muscled into giving us everything
and giving it now. Though it made me feel
terrible, I ate my entire portion of the cow.
Greg Emilio is a poet and food writer from southern California. The author of the poetry
collection Kitchen Apocrypha (Able Muse, 2024), his poems and essays have appeared or are
forthcoming in Best New Poets, Birmingham Poetry Review, Gravy, Garden & Gun,
Hippocampus, North American Review, The Rumpus, Tupelo Quarterly, and Southern
Humanities Review, among other magazines and journals. He currently lives in Atlanta,
where he serves as the executive director of the Georgia Writers Association and teaches at
Kennesaw State University.
