Nicoline.

I listen to your familiar voice
Over the phone.
From far away. you tell me…

That yesterday,
(…hosting a soon to be removed
carcinoma on your temple…)
you went out to lunch near Parisot.

Lunch…cooked by Nicoline .

How does she do it?
The soup of fresh peas … shallots
Home made pate Normandy….
Peppers stuffed with spinach
and Brie de Meaux…
Jambon persille..

She makes the finest
Tarte aux Abricots
you say.

How do her long pale fingers
move in her dark, blind world
with such accuracy…?

Blighted with the black of sightless eyes,
she glides in her kitchen
with a supernatural hunch,
without complaint.

Nicolina’s joie de vivre
fills the room
with an intangible glow….

With great panache
she throws back her head….
and her long auburn hair
becomes a glorious mane…

She entertains her friends and…
her husband pours the wine.
Kristine Byrne 29th March-April 27th 2018