The Art of Conversation

This table is heavy, laden

with your pithy thoughts.

 

You gurgle your Pinot Grigio as you laugh,

apple crumble sliding down, easy does it,

two halves each

 

one ought to leave at nine

it does not do in this place

to overstay one’s welcome

 

and you’ll have waxed your lyrical

on populism, gilets jaunes,

stripped citizens and fighter jets

and finish for this night.

 

These flickering candles are tasteful

your words are soaked in their warmth, there is love and

you’re all so kind and I’ve enjoyed myself so very much, but

 

There is a crumbling city five thousand miles from here, where there are foggy evenings steeped in chai. There are aunties who dropped by this morning and stayed for lunch, starting their stories of being young and beautiful, in a space that was theirs alone; they speak of weddings and tailor trips – wars are a backdrop to their shared biopic, a lament for lost time, yet still they laugh like maniacs, all the while soaked in an electric warmth.

 

It goes on, repartee like no other,

hours slip by but my lesson continues

in the art of conversation, in a classroom

five thousand miles from home.

 

They understand your populism;

they’ve seen it in gaon ki politics,

philosophy over aloo kay parathay,

growing up in golden fields,

 

watching it all play out in cycles,

rolling round and round again.

 

So you will forgive me that I remember

times when times were better,

when the space we were in was beloved

and there was no curfew.

 

– you will forgive me for being

so primitive,

nostalgic for talk that never ends.

 

Poem by Zehra Munir. Illustration by Léa Gayer de Mena.