On Seeing Salman Rushdie

I've just stumbled on a short, whimsical poem I wrote many years ago.

Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Satanic Verses’ was published in 1988; a fatwa for his execution was issued by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. After this, Rushdie had to go into hiding. So imagine my surprise when, a few years later, I saw him, (well, it looked like him), drinking coffee in a window in George’s Street. Then a thought struck me.

 Under Fatwa 

In a coffee shop window,

couldn’t be!

He’d never sit in a window,

would he?

It must be someone else,

surely.

Now there’s a thought

just struck me:

I wouldn’t want to look like

Salman Rushdie!