The Widow Next Door
Every Saturday
when the sun is out
and it's hotter than Hades
Monica next door
raises her garage door
early in the morning
and leaves it up
long past noon as if
Herm will walk out
at any minute
oily and greasy
needing to clean up
the way he used to
every Saturday
for 30 years until
liquor ate his liver.
At night Monica
can still hear
the tall Marine
fingering Taps
over Herman's grave.
First Day on Parole
Sometimes a person
can go too far,
Mickey said,
two stools over
downing another beer,
his first day on parole.
Someone like that
cops can find dead,
he said, after
newspapers start
littering the lawn.
A bullet in the temple
that no one hears
because of a silencer,
he pointed out,
is sometimes
the culprit.
Such a good person,
the neighbors say
about the deceased,
and that may be true,
Mickey admitted,
but sometimes a person,
even a nice person,
can go too far,
say the wrong thing
to the wrong person
at the wrong time
and take a bullet
in the temple,
Mickey said,
because it's hard
to put a cobra
under a bed.
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
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