Simple Cafe

A poem by Hajar Hussaini

Witness me among the lost
generation of Simple going Café
drinking where your former lover
orders a cup of tea whose
current lover,
lemonade. Kabul
has only one place where
close distant tables and chairs
know no borders.
Because
music
creates limitation
between the introvert with her smartphone
and the extrovert thinking about
a thrown grenade.
The unspeakable gerund
of a suicide jacket
might kill you or someone
occupying
one of
these
years
add up
to the piled undead
unread
bodies on newspapers
and I am nowhere else.
Talk to me
as the Iranian anthropologist
talks to Afghan beggars.
In my room
a Disney toy
that resembles you.
And you
who has touched
every piece of my clothing
the new pair of shoes
I have not worn.
The same song will autoplay
on two sides of an ocean
Simple Café will soon
be closed by Hekmatyar
And you
won’t be able
to wave.

About the Author: Hajar Hussaini is an Afghan poet living in the U.S. where she pursues an MFA in Poetry at the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop.