We ate horse, once, at a corner table
in a candlelit basement at Juuri’s-
everything difficult to distinguish,
in a trend filled restaurant
where I’d blagged us a table
with what you called my Irish charms
that your French ones lacked in buckets.
Earlier, we’d flown across the water
on a large ferry to a small island
where the wind blew everything off us
that was unnecessary as if Helsinki
was surgeon and we- patients
coming into the theatre of life
and learning what it takes to eat a horse
that we thought was a bear.
But nothing is ever what it appears,
under a flame or over the wave.
I sit now in another land,
at another table, lighting another candle
and seeing glimpses, in the flickering light
of who we were, of what we tasted
and what that wind swept off our shoulders
that we hadn’t even named.

We ate horse once, in a dimly lit basement,
all fantastic flesh without a single trace of fat
that we devoured while drawing tales
of more than 100 things we’d do together.
I think we possibly made it past 30.

All words and photographs. by Damien B Donnelly