Meal for Two
There’s a salty, briny breeze redolent
of cliff walks, white-washed cottages,
a woman with whom I’d shared meals,
intimacy. In the warm Azorean air,
a black cat, its curiosity circumspect
in the way of island creatures,
ambles across my path. Ballerino-like,
it leaps onto a street-side rock-ledge
& gifts a ripped rodent into the open
mouth of its tousle-furred partner.
Not privy to the lunge, hapless shriek
offstage – but seldom are we – I remember
we ate slowly, feeding each other
morsels of seasoned meat, as a prelude
to kindling kindred hearts,
love as a succulent delicacy.
Philip Byrne, a Dubliner, lives in Westchester, New York. He has been the poetry editor for Inkwell Magazine out of Manhattanville University. Recent poems are in The Raven Review, the Beach Chair Press, The Soliloquist, The Westchester Review, The Orchards Poetry Journal, and Anthropocene. He captures snippets of memory and observation in poems that finds sustenance, rejuvenation, and joy in language.