The dinner table looks different for everyone.

For some, it is in a dining room –
Family seated around a wooden masterpiece,
Manners and light conversation
Secured by a fence.

It is on the couch.
Television pounding.
Telephones ringing.
Voices chattering.
Leftovers waiting for loved ones as they come home.

It is a fast food restaurant
and the only option
is the ninety-nine cent menu
No one cares that in ten, twenty, thirty years -
the hospital bills won’t care how cheap your food was.

It is the front porch
or the backyard
the grill on fire
and dad drinking one too many.

It is in a park
on a bed of grass
with your closest friends
and a peanut butter sandwich you made from home.

It is the search for a one dollar meal,
and the man counting change at the only vacant table
is being asked to move
for your consideration.

It is in a place
where you are completely alone.
with your thoughts
and your homemade platter of wonder.

As far as I’m concerned,
I have eaten dinner at them all.

If I were a writer
I would paint you an ornate introduction of landscapes and sceneries filled with color and care.
It would be an art form.
My art form.
And the readers reading my art would care too much about the painting to even notice what happens next.
For all they care I can teach them about religion through allegory and hypocrisy sort of like Jesus did when he tried out parables.
They didn't listen then.
They don't listen now.
They're too busy glancing at the scenery,
and I'm the one painting the pictures.