Learning a Language from a Master

Sonja Besford

with his tongue he licked and swallowed all my salt
yet still claimed that i wasn’t salty enough
for a gourmet of his northern diligence and appetite
apparently i lacked the conviction of the self-invented,
selfish revolutionary (they are the best, he claimed),
or at least i might try using unusual, poetic but
murderous adjectives, he suggested, to prove that
i too can appreciate a good fable and enjoy pain –
i understood nothing until i walked along the edge
of a platform in stepney green station looking at
a girl who was about to jump and a thug who
was about to save her, and i thought, it’s time
to replace my salt, it’s time to take a shower,
it’s time to drink some good wine, all in serbian

Read more of Sonja Besford’s poetry in issue 196!

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