My Dinner with Agha Ashraf Ali
You light a candle
then curse the darkness
with your usual flourish
debone a carp
add pinch of salt
in your carpeted kitchen
discourse on the next course
to scrape or not the fish head
gaadkalley honorific
you offer a scrap of history
bestowed once by Kashmiris
on the Big Crap who was fishy
We seize the day
before the diem carpe us
and raise our wineglass
to the disappeared carpenters
of Kashmir
a parched paradise
by Rafiq Kathwari / @brownpundit