Tom Carrigan

Blue chill in the air, lungs leaping, 
all the gleam of fresh nightfall 
funnelled into narrow streets. 
The illusion of homing in on it. 

Have I dined here before? 
I confess I haven’t. 
I fiddle with chopsticks, 
air caught in my throat. 

Dinner for one (wife 
out of town), the waiter’s nod 
and smile, an oversized 
match to a votive candle. 

I can’t resist the maple-miso 
salmon head, chef’s special, 
left in the oven for hours, 
a mass of knotted connective 

tissue slowly melted. 
Faced with the out-thrust jaw, 
I peel the skin’s thick char, 
a crunch of sugar and funk, 

and scoop the cheek-flesh. 
I resort to hands, tug 
at underpinnings, loosen 
pockets of collagen. 

A pile of thin bones. 
I can’t help but think 
of the wild upstream swim, 
the muscular lunge, 

milt descending on roe. 
How, after spawning, the fish 
decays in phosphorescence, 
a soft pulsing light, 

a fluid that looks 
like fire— a dream, you lose 
your balance as the sand 
dissolves in the undertow; 

the waiter tosses you 
a life ring— his come-again 
unspools and pulls you back 
to where you came from.