Donal Mahoney- A Poem

Marcia and the Locusts

Marcia was 17 the first time 

thousands of locusts rose 

from the fields of her father's farm 

and filled the air, sounding 

like zithers unable to stop.

Her father was angry 

but Marcia loved the music 

the locusts made. 

She was in high school then 

and chose to make 

locusts the focus 

of her senior paper. 

At the town library 

she learned locusts 

spend 17 years 

deep in the soil, 

feeding on fluids 

from roots of trees 

that make them 

strong enough 

to emerge  

at the proper time

to court and reproduce. 

Courtship requires 

the males to gather 

in a circle and sing until 

the females agree

to make them fathers.

Courtship and mating 

and laying of eggs 

takes almost two months 

and then the locusts fall 

from the air and die.

Marcia remembers 

the iridescent shells 

on the ground shining.

She was always careful 

not to step on them.

She cried when

the rain and the wind 

took them away. 

Now 17 years later Marcia is 34 

and the locusts are back again.  

Her dead father can't hear them

and Marcia no longer loves the music 

the way she did in high school.

Now she stays in the house 

and keeps the windows closed 

and relies on the air-conditioner   

to drown out the locusts.

Marcia has patience, however.

She knows what will happen.

She reads her Bible 

and sucks on lemon drops,

knowing the locusts will die.

In the seventh week,

the locusts fall from the air

in raindrops, then torrents.

"It is finished," Marcia says.

She pulls on her father's boots

and goes out in the fields

and stomps on the shells 

covering the ground

but she stomps carefully.

At 34 Marcia's in no hurry.

Before each stomp, 

she names each shell 

Billy, John, Chuck,

Terrence or Lester, 

the names of men 

who have courted her

during the 17 years 

since high school. 

They all made promises 

Marcia loved to hear, 

promises she can recite 

like a favorite prayer.

She made each man happy

as best she could.

They would grunt

like swine the first night,

some of them for many nights. 

But then like locusts 

they would disappear.

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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.