a tiny rolled up note passes from her mouth to mine.
Her tongue firmly in my cheek.
Speechless I... . . .can not speak.
She turns and with a flounce sashays off
an angel in dirndl dress.
"Slán leat...mo buachaill!" thrown over a naked freckled shoulder.
I unroll the tiny tiny scroll smile at what is written
her telephone number with several x's beneath
in red indelible ink.
Two tiny tiny eyes drawn in blue
with one eye closed in a wink.
*
"...póg..." - a kiss
"S'ea...n'ea?" - "Yes...no?"
"Tabhair dom do phóg!" - "Give me your kiss!"
"Slán leat...mo buachaill!"..."Goodbye...boy!"
*** I afterwards asked her: "What was that all about?"t and she said: "Sure have ya never seen Dion Boucicault's Arrah na Pogue?" and I said: " No..." "Or hear mention of it in Finnegans Wake" and I said: "No..." and she said: " And ya call yer self a gentleman and a scholar?" and I said: " Well I am a gentle man. .."
So she explained that the famous kiss in Arrah-na-Pogue when Arrah( Nora ), saves her foster brother from execution for his role in the political uprising, by a kiss, during which she effects an exchange from her mouth to his of a small scroll containing the plans for his escape... by a kiss....you must remember this ... the famous noted kiss... so this little red-headed miss thought of this as her sister fancied me too and she wanted to be one step ahead of her. She had been dared to go up and kiss me and kissed me she did conveying all her feelings and a saliva drenched telephone number. The best way to deliver the post as Joyce says. "The passing of the key of Two-tongue Common." Oh the wicked wiles of wild women with a penchant for literature.!
And that was how I came to hear about an Arrahna-Pogue kiss and the Finnegans Wake reference to it!