Donal Mahoney- Three Poems

 

Those Border Niños Would Go Home, Too

The gossip started years ago

and ruined lives, burned everyone.

No one ever tried to stop it.

This Russian couple came to town 

and carved a life from land 

they had never seen. 

They could have moved years ago 

since money's not a problem.

The husband is an engineer, 

the wife a psychotherapist. 

Neighbors never speak to them,

never have, never will. 

At the festival that summer,

the couple tried to meet neighbors

and struck an iceberg. 

Elmo at the Dew Drop Inn recalls

"they liked hot dogs topped with kraut"

but "they had heavy accents."

Now Elmo and the neighbors swear

if they had sent the Russians packing,  

those border niños would go home, too. 

A Death in the Family

Sometimes it helps to learn

a relative has died 

a close relative you haven’t

seen in years and didn’t plan

to see again because 

you haven’t talked in years 

and wouldn’t talk again unless 

you met in heaven or perhaps in hell

and God or Satan said  

it’s too late now to harbor hate 

why not shake hands--

and that may happen yet

if the two of you should soar 

beyond the clouds or 

plummet to the coals

and find yourselves together

in the same place forever.

The two of you always knew

where the other one would go 

and too late now you both 

may be surprised.

Judy's Father and Mine

The only difference between 

Judy’s father and mine

is my father didn’t drink.

When we were tykes 

they’d come home from work 

in a rage every evening, 

her father drinking into the night 

and mine sitting in silence

in a tiny parlor playing

ancient reels and jigs 

on a huge RCA Victrola.

Her father wore a tie

and carried a brief case,

and mine wore coveralls

and carried a lunch bucket 

into the alleys of Chicago

climbing light poles to fix 

dead wires so all could see.

Her father came home neat,

mine soaked in sweat.

But they were twins, 

Siamese if you will, 

each miserable in his own way, 

driving wives and children nuts.

I always wondered if Judy and I

had normal fathers, if we

would have been 

scriveners as adults.

I know I would have gone

to law school and railed

in court in behalf of 

the innocent and guilty

and made wads of money 

I’d be fingering now instead 

of sitting behind a keyboard 

at dawn still typing. 

 

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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.