On my side are seated a silentious,
middle-aged, suburban couple.
The gent seems to savor his glugs
his wife pecks at the peanuts.
With her ashen, faraway eyes,
she reviews the rathskeller.
Her spouse squints at me and then
stares at others, a cold, vapid once-over.
I look crabwise. Following her husband’s
second refill, she surrenders her silence.
Her hubby slackens his swigs;
servitor withdraws the goobers.
A sommelier sings to himself:
The evening has begun.
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Sanjeev Sethi
Picture Nick Victor
Sanjeev Sethi is an award-winning poet who has authored eight poetry collections. His poems have been published in forty countries and appear in over 600 journals and anthologies. Some credits: London Magazine, The Fortnightly Review, Stand Magazine, North Dakota Quarterly, Hamilton Stone Review, and Indian Literature.
Sethi edited Dreich Planet # India, an anthology for Hybriddreich, Scotland, in 2022, and in 2025, Fictile Feelings, a poetry special for The Hooghly Review. In April 2026, he was the guest curator of the India Edition of The Candyman’s Trumpet in Scotland. He is the joint winner of the Full Fat Collection Competition-Deux, organized by the Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK. In 2023, he won First Prize in a poetry competition at the National Defence Academy, Pune. He served as a judge of the Wood Rose Spiritual Poetry Prize 2026. He lives in Mumbai, India.
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