The Conversation
by Mark 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 eyeing 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 conversion
strolled for a while longer, into longer
pauses over a couple of dollars worth
of cooling Ethiopian Harari.