The Metropolitan Museum and After

by Faisal Salahuddin

Why couldn't we meet at the Met

Under Aurangzeb's dream in the Asian gallery,

Before the Persian river from your eyes

Devoured me like a forbidden vortex

Numbing my Victorian immigrant senses?

We both miserably pretended that

The thunder between our well-demarcated worlds

Did not pull us together

Like a blackhole beyond every pedestrian's view,

Before we slid

Into the zero gravity of early quiet morning in the Central Park

And

Until you suffocated me

With your hair and

Tabooless glances,

Even after the empty wine glasses

Stood silently on the crowded coffee table

Like obedient soldiers.

Faisal Salahuddin was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He completed his undergraduate work in Indiana and did his graduate work economics and currently is working for one of the Bretton Wood Institutions in Washington DC as an economist. He previously worked as an actuary for Travelers' Insurance.