Caesar Salad
Anne Fitzgerald
(April 19th 2019)
Not a stones-throw from
Saint John’s Castle near banks
of the River Shannon, over
chicken Caesar salad, we talk
of this and that against
a backdrop of SKY news muted.
Cut down on Romaine
lettuce ribs, vaulted cathedral-like
above beds of croutons
dressed with lemon juice, olive
oil, eggs and a dash of Tabasco. Fire
breaks out on the roof
of my mouth and beneath
Notre Dame Cathedral attic. Flying-buttresses,
transept and nave burn,
crumple and fall as Rose Windows
(survive), I once spent ages transfixed
by colours, medallions of saints,
angles and martyrs. In particular
your man who lost his head on the hill
of Montmartre, Cephalophore
Denis, bishop of Paris carries
head in hands, for near on four miles,
preaches repentance along
Rue des Martyrs, buries
his crâne where
he choses, before dropping.
Our forks drop. Watch orange
flames fuel thick smoke pillars in place
of Gothic spires, gargoyles
and limestone columns tourist
touched to cool. Centuries of stone craft
turns to ash, as heat rises SKY’s
volume reaches fever pitch, like
the reverse, aftershock a death leaves, when
sound submerges underwater.
Anne Fitzgerald was raised in Sandycove, County Dublin, Ireland. She is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin and Queen’s University, Belfast. Her poetry collections are Swimming Lessons (Wales, Stonebridge, 2001), The Map of Everything (Dublin, Forty Foot Press, 2006), Beyond the Sea and Vacant Possession (Co. Clare, Salmon Poetry, 2012 & 2017). In 2006 Anne founded Forty Foot Press in addition to two School Publishing Houses, Monkstown Educate Together Press (MET Press, 2003) and Loreto Abbey Dalkey Press (LAD Press, 2004). She is a recipient of the Ireland Fund of Monaco Writer-in-Residence bursary at The Princess Grace Irish Library, Monaco. She has taught Creative Writing extensively across Ireland, Iceland and the United States of America. Anne lives in Sandycove, Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin, Ireland. For her biography visit Forty Foot Press.