Donal Mahoney- A Poem

PTSD

In the waiting room, I squeeze 

this old rosary a nun gave me 

the day I got back from Iraq.

I was still in a daze on a gurney

and I still had sand in my hair.

Some of it remains, no matter 

how many showers I take. 

Sand from Iraq lingers, I'm told,

until you go bald, and then

you are able to concentrate

on other things.

What might they be, I wonder.

But today, in this waiting room,

I squeeze the rosary tighter  

when I hear, louder than 

the gunshots crackling in my dreams, 

the real screams of that little boy 

right over there, the one who's 

rapped his elbow off the radiator.

Lord, listen to him scream! 

Each week he comes with his mother 

for her follow-up appointment. 

He sounds like the jet 

that takes me back at night

to that little village in Iraq

where the sand puffs up  

in mushroom clouds

above the bullets

as the children scream 

in their hovels louder 

than that little boy  

screaming over there.

Maybe everyone 

in this waiting room

listening to him scream  

can come with me now 

to that village in Iraq.

Sitting here, I know 

that boy's pain so well 

that in my fist 

this rosary no longer

knows my prayers. 

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Donal Mahoney has had poems published in Dead Snakes and other publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.