.
Monologue
While we’re on the subject,
Let’s talk about the walls, Mr. A.,
Let’s count them, make sure they’re
All there and in perfect working order.
They are, after all, the arms of the thing,
The beat, the rhythm, the silent drum.
They’re the white telephones of this whole shebeen,
The moonshine, if you will, the show of confidence.
And I am confident, Mr. A., that every wall,
Concave or convex, will portray what you
Want it to, buon fresco or secco finto, lotus
Or fish or green goddess micro-chipped into
Metamorphosis. You can plaster your peacock feathers
And cure your luck, for good or evil. Soak up
The sap and nurture the essence.
Okay, there are twenty-one of them. Twenty-one
Is a good number, I feel. They’ll hold.
.
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Born and raised in India, Ayesha Chatterjee has lived in England, the USA and Germany, and currently resides in Toronto. She graduated from Smith College, Massachussetts, where one of her most vividly remembered courses was a lyric poetry class taught by Joseph Brodsky.
Her poems have appeared in The Guardian Online, nth position and Autumn Sky Poetry. This October, she is thrilled to be reading at Toronto’s International Festival of Authors. Her first collection, The Clarity of Distance, was published in 2011 by Bayeux Arts(www.bayeux.com). She blogs at www.ayeshachatterjee.com and tweets at @profoundpapaya.
Abegail Morley 