Donal Mahoney- A Poem

Sitting Shiva in a Hotel Lobby

For a year this image has haunted me.

Over and over I hear on the gramophone

Cohen put in my ear

“Feature this:

On a crowded elevator

a strange woman in a baseball cap

unbuttons your fly.”

That image is on the ceiling every night

as I sit shiva in the lobby

of this small hotel,

a hookah, like a tired cobra,

coiled at my feet,

a shamrock in my buttonhole

dead from the last parade.

Night after night,

I think about this strange woman

as each hour I watch

the doors of the elevator

part and give birth.

I observe each new guest carefully,

hoping the woman in the baseball cap

will tire of the rain and ride up

in the elevator and register.

I want her to sit in the lobby

and talk with us.

We who are guests here forever

have eons to hear

what she has to say.

We have paid our rent in advance.

We can afford to sit here and see.

 

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Nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, Donal Mahoney has had work published in various print and electronic publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.