the belly rides out

Coffee with Anissa Ladjemi in the Starbucks on Dawson Street.
She's my advisor on Arab Muslim affaires.
Ahem.
As you join us I am doing the talking.
I am holding forth in a particularly scintillating expostulation about my latest play when I glance at her and notice her attention has wandered.
More precisely her attention has wandered to some point of my body well below the neckline.
She is gazing with Islamic intensity at my midriff.
I catch her eye.
A guilty look caresses her regal features.
"James," she says sweetly. "Have you lost weight?"
I treat this mulligan with the respect it deserves.
"Oh come on," I cry warmly. "There's no way you were staring at my belly because you thought it had gotten smaller."
"No really," she persists. "It's a while since I've seen you. You've definitely lost weight."
"I'm as fat as a fool," I shoot back.
"Not as fat as you were," she parries.
This riposte is less pleasing to me than you might expect.
I fall silent.
The ghost of BBC sports commentator Frank Bough appears at my shoulder.
With great purpose and no little delicatesse, he begins to speak as though reading football results.
"Peace Loving Religion Of Islam: One," he intones. "Fat Irishman: Nil."

holly

(Born towards 4am Tuesday 2nd August 2011)
***
bless this leaf upon the tree
bless this bud which now doth bloom
bless this kiss of destiny
bless this new soul before thy throne

bless this heart bless this dove
bless this breath newly drawn
bless this precious gift of love
bless this life bless this dawn

about bono

"About Bono..." I began.
"Don't talk to me about Bono," interrupted my feminist cousin Pauline, "whatever he ever had, he's lost it."
Since, of the two of us, Pauline was the only one present who had ever shared a hotel bedroom with Bono, I was inclined to respect her wishes on this matter, and lapsed into silence.
Exiting her health food shop, I was struck, not for the first time, by the odd incongrueties which punctuate the mystic vicissitudes of existence.