At Bus Stops on Thanksgiving Day

artwork: ralph murre

At Bus Stops on Thanksgiving Day

by Donal Mahoney

Before dawn, people

who work on Thanksgiving Day 

wait in the wind for a bus

to arrive or maybe not.

It's too cold to talk 

so the people stand

like minutemen and plan

a revolution that would shock 

nice families who drive by later,

children tucked in scarves

and mittens, laughing

all the way to Nana's house 

for turkey, gravy, stuffing

and later in the day

a ballerina of whipped cream

twirling on pumpkin pie.

Thanksgiving is the day

America asks for seconds

and sorts its servers

from the served.

~ first published in Eye on Life Magazine

Found in an Attic . . .

artwork: ralph murre

Found in an Attic:

World War II Letter to a Wife

by Donal Mahoney

When I get home

things will be the same.

I haven't changed.

The sling 

comes off the day

I get on the plane.

I'll be able

to cut the grass,

rake the leaves,

shovel the snow,

all the stuff I did before.

And every morning

in summer, fall,

winter and spring,

when we wake up,

I'll draw rosettes

with the tip

of my tongue

on your nipples,

await your orders to

bivouac elsewhere.

Nothing has changed.

I'm feeling fine.

We'll cleave again

~ first published in Eye on Life

First Tulip

digital photoart: sharon auberle

First Tulip

by Donal Mahoney

Sometimes you sit for days

sucking yourself in 

praying the right words

will fall in your ear

toboggan over the whorls

pierce the canal

and settle in your brain

an embryonic delight.

Sometimes you sit for days

and finally the words come

and they're always a surprise

like the first tulip in April

or a sudden

orgasm for your wife.

~ previously published in The Citron Review

Mostly Basie with a Little Bach

digital artmerge: ralph murre

Mostly Basie with a Little Bach

by Donal Mahoney

Whenever I see a new woman, I know 

I should look at her hair and her eyes and her smile  

before I decide if she's worth the small talk

and the dinner later 

and whatever else she may require 

before she becomes taffy, 

pliant and smiling. 

But that never works for me.

Whenever I see a new woman, 

what matters to me is never 

her hair or her eyes or her smile;

what matters to me is her saunter 

as I stroll behind her.

If her moon comes over the mountain

and loops in languor, left to right, 

and then loops back again,

primed for another revolution, then

I introduce myself immediately

no matter where we are, 

in the stairwell or on the street

and that's when I see for the first time

her hair and her eyes and her smile  

but they are never a distraction since

I'm lost in the music of her saunter.

Years ago, tall and loping Carol Ann

took a train to Chicago, 

found a job and then one summer day 

walked ahead of me on Michigan Avenue 

while I surveyed her universe amid 

the cabs screeching, horns beeping, 

a driver's middle finger rising. 

Suddenly she turned and said hello 

and we shook hands and I saw her smile 

dart like a minnow and then disappear 

as she frowned and asked   

why was I walking behind her. 

I told her I was on my way to the noon Mass

at Holy Name Cathedral and she was welcome 

to come along. The sermon wouldn't be much, 

I said, but the coffee and bagels afterward 

would be plentiful, enough to cover lunch.

And Jesus Christ Himself would be there.

She didn't believe me, not at all, 

and she hasn't believed me since. 

That was thirty years ago and now

her smile is still a minnow

darting here and there but now 

it's more important than her saunter 

which is still a symphony, 

mostly Basie with a little Bach.

And I no longer traipse Michigan Avenue 

as I did years ago looking for new moons 

swirling in my universe. Instead, 

I take my lunch in a little bag 

on a long train from the suburbs

and I marvel at one fact:

It's been thirty years since I first heard 

the music in her saunter

and Carol Ann and I are 

still together, praise the Lord. 

Who can believe it? Not I. 

Carol Ann says she knew 

the ending from the start. 

Lord, Almighty. Fancy that.

~ first published in Eye on Life Magazine

Quick as Piranha

artwork: ralph murre

Quick as Piranha

 by Donal Mahoney

Tucked in a booth in back,

the last customer of the day

cracks a fortune cookie,

sips Oolong as Mr. Hong

locks up. It’s time for his supper. 

Two tall sons bear

from the kitchen dishes

his wife won’t allow

on the menu.

Platters of meat

red, green, brown

huddle and steam

in the middle of the table.

When the Hongs

drop in their seats

chopsticks fly

like beaks. So many bright teeth,

quick as piranha.

~ first published in Sand Castles Magazine

Harvesting Pumpkins

artwork: ralph murre

Harvesting Pumpkins

by Donal Mahoney

From villages in Iowa,

Indiana, Minnesota and Nebraska

and from towns in the Dakotas,

Wisconsin and Michigan,

there stream to Chicago in spring

parades of lithe girls

looking for boys 

who will look at them

but who find instead

the men who will wine them

through summer,

who will wait until fall

to thresh in the fields

one summer can ripen,

the men who will watch

till a pumpkin falls from the vine.

This is the courtship

village girls dream about,

laugh about, hope for.

Come fall, these are the men

who fill silos of girls

from Elkhart and Davenport,

Ely and other small places,

lithe girls who in spring

come to Chicago looking for boys

who will look at them

but who find instead

the reapers, the men.

                       ~  first published in The Kansas Quarterly

Those Good Tomatoes

artwork: ralph murre

Those Good Tomatoes

by Donal Mahoney

          Chicago, South Side

Late July and I am waiting

for those good tomatoes

brought to the city from farms

on trucks with a swinging scale,

brought to the city

and into the alleys

by Greeks and sons

in late July

and early August,

tomatoes so red they reign

on the sills of my mind all winter

too perfect to eat.

~ first published in The Christian Science Monitor

Returning to Work

artwork: ralph murre

Returning to Work

by Donal Mahoney

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.

~ first published in Cinquefoil

Consuela and Sean

photo: ralph murre - sculptor: unknown

Consuela and Sean

by Donal Mahoney

Through the nursery glass

Carlos Montero peeks at Consuela,

his twelfth, in the arms of a nurse.

Pink as a peony

with brilliant black hair,

Consuela is raw, bawling.

The nurse takes Consuela

away to be washed as Carlos

digs deep in his denims,

locks elbows, gleams,

turns to me. I feel odd

in a suit and a tie as I

wait to see Sean, our first.

When the nurse brings Sean to the window,

Carlos Montero whips off his sombrero,

makes a bullfighter's pass and beams. 

"Senor!" he booms like a tuba. "Ole!"

Suddenly I'm as happy as he.

~ previously published in Encore Magazine

Those Poems, That Fire

artwork: ralph murre

Those Poems, That Fire

by Donal Mahoney

I stood in the alley, still

in pajamas, somebody’s shoes,

another man’s coat, my eyes

on the bronc of the hoses.

Squawed in the blankets of neighbors,

my wife and three children sipped

chocolate, stood orange and still.

Of the hundred or more I had stored

in a drawer, I could remember,

comma for comma, no more than four,

none of them final,

all of them fetal.

~ first published in Four Quarters Magazine