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Mimi Khalvati

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The Year of the Dish

It has been the year of the dish.
Like the man who found a button
and had a suit made to match,
for every dish I’ve been given,

I must re-arrange my kitchen
and like a meridian ring
round a brass celestial globe
inlaid with silver, bring

sheikhs to dine on my dishes:
dish with leaves and blossoms,
dish with ewer, grapes,
dish with portrait of Italian,

dish with clouds and lotuses,
dish with ducks, leopards,
dish with fish-scale ground,
dish with two fish, birds

(small birds perched in a grapevine
painted under the glaze),
dish with ship in fritware
over which my crudités

will hide ship, birds, fish,
leopards, ducks, lotuses
and clouds, portrait of Italian,
grapes, ewer, blossoms

and leaves from their greedy gaze.
It has been, as I said, the year
of the dish.  Next year shall be,
I decree, the year of the cafetiére.

Page(s) 32

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