Tag: pommes frites

Mr. Soulié made pommes frites twice a day

in a kitchen full of books that overtook his flat

gathered on tables shelves and dressers

on fine furniture with pearly inlay

My brother was friendly with the literary gentleman

who confided he’d written a famous book

for a well-known West African writer

Then adopted a son

Kelefa Keita who came from Conakry Guinea

with a whole collection of African art

masks and gourds and staffs and wooden sculptures

ornate with bone and shells

You need to clean these things they give you asthma

all that dust old books yellowed paper remonstrated

my unimpressed mother who rang his bell

for conversation on her way up to our flat

But Monsieur Soulié laughed wide mouthed and ah ah  ah

until he choked three full minutes and laboriously began

breathing again while my mother fretted – Didn’t I tell you? –

And then he  recovered and began ah ah ah again

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To find more poetry by Liliane Richman on this blog, click HERE.