Thai Maid

The sheet bloats and gullies over her head,
the white sail of my surrender to this
block-on-ugly-block hotel in Münich.

She instructs me on necessary shortcuts:
the fast flick of hot water on a sink,
how to pick at lint instead of Hoovering.

As tiny as a wren, she toils and chatters,
pushing me on with ten times my strength,
a hundred times my good humour.

Adam and Eve As Entrepreneurs

After Eden, and all that palaver with Yahweh,
dust and flesh, fruit and asp, fig leaves and so forth,
we were in the market for a new place.

I fancied somewhere lofty: a tree-house with a view.
But my chap had had it with trees, and wanted
something darkly comforting, like a cave.

We hustled the deposit for an artisan’s dwelling,
converted the downstairs, and swung a sign outside:
‘Adam & Eve, Purveyors of Human Kind, Since Time Began’.

Himself manned the office, pearing pencils,
waiting for business to boom. I languished in our bed,
belly ripening, waiting for the daughter I was sure would come.

Nuala Ní Chonchúir is a full-time fiction writer and poet. She holds a BA in Irish from Trinity College Dublin and a Masters in Translation Studies (Irish/English) from Dublin City University, and teaches creative writing on a part-time basis. She has published two collections of short fiction and two poetry collections - one in an anthology.