[This is the poem.]

If ever cheese were cheese, then surely you.
I’ll never eat another; that much is true.

There is a hum and my phone skitters an inch or so across the table, bumping into a pastel yellow beachhouse perched on wooden stilts above a vista of scenic rolling dunes.

It’s Marc, asking if I’m down for brunch tomorrow with his cousin who’s in town for a music festival.

With a sigh, I text back to say I can’t afford to keep going to brunch in the middle of the week, by means of the waffle, dollar sign, and sad face emojis

Dear Mr. Loaf,

Can I call you Meat? I’m writing because we share an affinity for renaming ourselves as grub. You were once Marvin and became so much more. Likewise, I want the culinary glory of nomenclature from foodstuffs.

A melee broke out early this morning at a coffee shop in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn between those waiting in line to order their tall, grandes and ventis and the steady stream of customers who ordered online and sauntered past them to grab their waiting drinks.