Caseworker Takes Notes
I was there the day
there trickled down the wall
of an old man's room one roach
that stopped across
a canyon in the plaster till
the old man's elevated slipper fell.
The roach absorbed the blow
and as though perforated for that purpose
dissolved into an archipelago.
The old man looked at me
and patiently explained, "Despite my
constant smacking of its brethren
one roach each day will trickle down that wall
and pause and pose as if to say,
'Go ahead and smack me, that's okay.' "
To take advantage of the archipelago at hand
the old man pointed toward the last palpitating island
and once again explained,
"Each roach I smack, you see,
offers me that same good-bye--
one last flicker of antennae."
Siren at Three in the Morning
You want to abide by custom
but what kind of card
do you send
a man of those years
swept through the night
in a riot of snow
and wet streets
to a hospital quit
one month ago,
a fifth of his gut left,
that eaten through?
Returning to Work
After the others had welcomed him back,
had shaken his hand and returned to their desks,
another as ancient pulled over his chair
to inquire of him who six months before
had been taken away
on a pallet of interlocked arms
and parallel faces:
“What happened that day?
No one would say.”
Both men talked softly,
held cigarette rites:
the delights of the tapping,
the lighting, the stubbing,
the one man explaining,
the other one listening,
both of them knowing
a matter of months.
In Chesterfield and Spats
The father of the girl
I stare at now,
as we wait for our morning bus,
stands across the street,
tall and proper in his
chesterfield and spats.
He is waiting for a bus
that goes in the opposite direction.
He wears a derby,
swings a silver cane,
smokes a green panatela.
Suddenly he pirouettes
and smiles at my daughter.
She takes the same bus
to school every morning.
That night at supper,
I ask her about him.
"Dad, he's super!"
At 12, she knows.
"Dad, he rides the same bus
as me every morning.
He checks my homework
and I ask him questions.
Dad, he knows all the answers."
I Think Jesus
I think Jesus knows I’m nuts
so why would he arraign me
in front of all those saints on high
so sane they’ll never see me
skipping down the road at dawn
and not a soul behind me.
Funnel clouds may tear through hell
but not the ones inside me.
They come and go all on their own
as if they can’t abide me.
Today they’re off to New Orleans
so batten down the hatches.
When they return they’ll churn again
whirligigs inside me.
Yet every day when I get up
I know this much for certain:
I think Jesus knows I’m nuts
so why would he arraign me?
"Donal Mahoney has worked as an editor for The Chicago Sun-Times, Loyola University Press and Washington University in St. Louis. A Pushcart nominee, he has had poems published in The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Commonweal, Public Republic (Bulgaria), Gloom Cupboard (U.K.), Revival (Ireland), The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey), Black-Listed Magazine, Rusty Truck, Opium 2.0, Asphodel Madness, Pirene's Fountain (Australia) and other publications."
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