I Once Drank Champagne With A Socialist

With her head held high,
Responding to rebuttals with a sigh
Of moral superiority,
Versus our intellectual inferiority.

“You do not know like I do.
What do you study, you?”
“History,” I replied.
“Policy,” she sighed.

“Leave it to me –
I am the professional.”
Any counter-argument
Met with dismissal.

This policy student, oh so wise,
I studied her stance
With a ‘wild surmise’.
Muttering remnants of Marx
And Vladimir Lenin.
I doubt she’d read Das Kapital –
Just had the hammer and sickle
Printed on her Egyptian cotton bed linen!

‘Silent’ around our table
At a members’ club in London,
The waitress came for orders
And just what had the socialist gone and done?

“Champagne for me,
And a langoustine, mussel, fish stew.”
I: “the sea bass
And for dessert we’ll share a Tiramisù”

There we sat, ever content,
Speaking of her home in Belgravia
Where she pays no rent,
Criticising her ‘rich-old-white-man’ father
Who pays every cent
And when pointing out her hypocrisy:
“That’s not what I meant!”

Champagne in her hand,
Wearing gold and cashmere,
Singing odes to Lenin:
‘Why wert thou so dear’

Her performative posturing, neatly spun,
A socialist life, richly done.