And so

there are these moments of uneasewhen words go astray in the familial noiseeven though your parents don't care about raceand I've never been torn, like the kind of brown facethat appears in films, between tradition and the West.Trying to follow what the English mean by class,the tiny jokey disapprovals—as if an irritation danced—in the middle of the sitting room I'm losttrying to follow this conversation about a sconeand how the word should be pronounced.Before I met you I'd never eaten one—though I was familiar with this debatefrom Basil Bunting's coat-trailing noteto Briggflatts, which I left crumby with barota.