English as a Second Language

We came upon a line of English

eating dog, we thought, on plump bread

steamed and slathered with a drab yellow

chutney from a cart in the Kew Gardens.

Villains, they looked to us, offending

nature, but we asked the dog-wallah

for one apiece—me, your Gian uncle,

and the elder Sahota who held up

seven fingers, then pointed to the sky:

a code of theirs he’d broken.

The dog-wallah just shook his head,

counted our shillings, surrendered

three green glass bottles of 7Up,

three warm logs in aluminium.

In 1967, you could hear a song

by The Beatles on anybody’s radio,

but what did The Beatles know about us

huddled together in our conspiracy

on a bench beneath a kind of tree

I’d never seen before? Anyway,

we were young and having fun,

the shit-eating grin on Gian’s face

as we brought the dog meat to our mouths.

When you sack the villain’s estate,

you have to raid the villain’s kitchen.

You dress in his topcoat and drink his gin.

You set his horses free and drive them

home through the rain. You see? We weren’t

afraid. We didn’t come here to become

like them. We came here to eat.