The
Conversation
Marc
Awodey
You
sketched me
at the coffee house,
we absently spoke of drawing
and
literature.
I took exception to the manner
in which you drew hands,
I
said-
you make them look like machines.
Citing Ingres, I plotted a continuous line.
You
agreed.
Critically
eying the young
who hovered near decorative book stacks,
I
muttered a condescending remark
about nose rings, poets, and tattoos.
But you refused to objectify or malign,
saying-
such is the nature
of this establishment and of youth.
I agreed.
We
nodded heads
and silently stroked socratic beards
as the artifice of conversation
strolled
for awhile longer, into longer
pauses over a couple of dollars worth
of cooling Ethiopian harari.
The
2River View, 1_4 (Summer 1997)
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