Today’s prompt is one I got from the poet Betsy Sholl. This prompt asks you to write a poem in which you first recall someone you used to know closely but are no longer in touch with, then a job you used to have but no longer do, and then a piece of art that you saw once and that has stuck with you over time. Finally, close the poem with an unanswerable question.

I couldn’t open the link provided but based on the explanation provided, here’s my poem:

‘I remember‘

I remember,    

   the day we became friends
   It was only natural I suppose
   Being thirteen was tough,
   High school was rough
   and we were the new girls
   on the block
   I don't know what we spoke of
   how much we shared
   But we got close


   the first time I came home,the day 
   we had tahdig* and koobideh**-
   I had thought the crisp parts of the rice burnt-
   until you explained it was how it was meant
   to be. I imagined you making tehdeeg  today
   with your mother, the sound of your laughter
   in the kitchen, the sweet smell of rose and saffron
   I was reading 'The stationary shop in Tehran'
   And I thought of you, three decades ago.


   the old me- caged in a glass cabin, behind a desk, 
   Board rooms, projects, reports, audits
   Men and women dressed in suits
   Discussions- deadlines,solemn faces 
   Business reviews, system upgrades 
   Credit cards, targets, compliance
   Alien words - a language I no longer 
   understand. Its only bee four years
   since I was freed


   my first time at an art exhibition 
   I went with this girl, Katya - a Russian-American
   We were artists in the making
   There was this painting- one big, black circle 
   on a white canvas - it covered the entire wall
   Who buys this? For a whopping eighty grand
   We can do better, we laughed
   They placed a signboard over it, 'Sold' 
   We were not done clicking our photographs.


 If every memory be spun into poetry
 tell me, how many more will I weave until the end?

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*tahdig- scorched rice
**koobideh - kebab made of lamb