Monaghan’s Fish Market
He liked to look at the cases full of fish
filleted and laid out like the swarm of souls
on the Sistine Chapel ceiling Michelangelo
painted for the pope. Sometimes a whiff
of the ocean rose off it as he passed
or possibly the fishmonger’s daughter
that bright-faced girl, maybe it was her
who smelled of the sea and the tide ceaslessly
coming and going and the thick damp grass
of the headlands and the blue air’s incensing.
Thomas Lynch is a poet, essayist and fiction writer who was a finalist for the National Book Award. He is a funeral director in Milford Michigan with a home in West Clare Ireland. This poem was included in his recent collection “Walking Papers”.
I read this three or hour times in order to really taste it fully. Delicious!
Amazing!