Bloomsday Lunch

Happy Bloomsday!
Today is the day to enjoy
a gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of burgundy
-- in honor of Leopold Bloom & James Joyce's Ulysses!
[More ~ here]

Photo credit: I picked this one -- not from Dublin,
but from Gerry's Cousin Jonny's fine pub
in Edinburgh: Pickles of Broughton

The Gate

I had no idea that the gate I would step through
to finally enter this world

would be the space my brother's body made. He was
a little taller than me: a young man

but grown, himself by then,
done at twenty-eight, having folded every sheet,

rinsed every glass he would ever rinse under the cold
and running water.

This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me.
And I'd say, What?

And he'd say, This—holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich.
And I'd say, What?

And he'd say, This, sort of looking around.

Marie Howe (b 1950)