Miss Nora by Dennis Moriarty

Miss Nora is a quaint old lady, a local

celebrity of sorts.

Eats hot buttered toast, Greek yogurt

and porridge for breakfast.

Dutifully taking her pills with all the

enthusiasm of Johnny Cash

on a 1960’s Nashville bender.

Drinks with the thirst of Oliver Reed,

back and forth

the well of temptation, abstinence a word

she cares not to hear.

She is a gastronomist, the best food critic

this town as ever known,

curses with all the eloquence of Gordon

Ramsey

reading from a script to camera.

She’s a connoisseur

of the finest chocolate, not for her that

cheap supermarket shit,

85% cocoa and nothing less. Once, after

a night of over indulgence,

a whole box of Green And Black’s organic,

she ended up in rehab,

hooked up all day to a drip and at 5o’clock

we picked her up

and she sat in the back of the car, totally unaware

that we were now £300 poorer,

totally ignoring the vet who stood on out

on the pavement,

gleefully waving goodbye!

Dennis Moriarty was born in London, England and now lives in Wales. Married with five grown up offspring Dennis likes walking the dog in the mountains, reading and writing.

In 2017 he won the Blackwater poetry competition and went to county Cork in Ireland to read his work at the international poetry festival. Dennis has had poems featured in many publications including Blue nib, Our poetry archive, Setu bilingual, The passage between and others.