Eduardo’s
In a restaurant made from the thin arms
of a tree embracing white-washed walls,
I eat strips of duck and strands of almond
prepared by a stooped Belgian gentleman.
A wall of glass separates me from him,
and within this wall swim miniature
tropical fish, all black and red stripes,
mother-of-pearl and orange polka dots.
The fish and I go eyeball-to-eyeball,
the tip of my nose touching
the bumpy nodules atop each flat face
and the gauzy fins billowing
and flicking as they whirr past my ear,
up and down the watery wall.
I dive into a Douro red and the flashy fish
and the silver-haired Belgian and I swim
into and out of each other. He slices pink duck-
breast and flambés raspberries in vodka
and the thin brown arms of the tree squeeze
us closer and the chalky fringe
of the low ceiling blanches the top
of my head.
Mary Noonan lives in Cork. Her poems have appeared magazines, including The Dark Horse, Blackbox Manifold, BigCityLit, Wasafiri, Tears in the Fence, The Moth, The Echo Room, The Same, Best of Irish Poetry 2010, and The Threepenny Review. Her first collection – The Fado House – was published by Dedalus Press, Dublin, in 2012. You can listen to some more of her poems here: www.fishousepoems.org