Thousand-Legger at Midnight
I rise to pee at midnight
and it’s nice to see
no gunman in the bathroom
waiting to shoot me
but there’s a thousand-legger,
a centipede, if you will,
in the tub, disoriented
by the light
walking in circles
like an unhappy cat.
He’s obviously upset
he can’t escape the tub
because of the high walls.
A mystery how he got there.
The walls won’t let him go
where life might dictate.
Now that autumn’s here,
maybe he’s come to visit
or maybe spend the winter.
He doesn’t know it but
he won’t survive my wife
well known to other insects,
now deceased, as Big Foot.
Every once in awhile
he tries to crawl the wall
but falls to the floor again,
the longest centipede
I’ve ever seen, a caboose
suddenly left behind,
deserted on a railroad track,
going nowhere till my wife
applies her heel.
On Tippy Toes
On tippy toes
with arms outstretched
my grandson asks
how old are you
and so I tell him
I'm sooooo old
that when I stretch
my arms like his
to exercise them
vultures land and
caucus there.
My grandson says
he puts his arms out
so robins will build
nests on them
and raise their chicks.
He never takes a nap
because he has to keep
his eyes on the clouds
to shoo away hawks
circling for supper.
Gramps Is Still Nuts about Granny
Granny wants to go to a movie
back in the old neighborhood
where she and Gramps used to
neck in high school but Gramps
doesn't want to drive that far
and tells Granny he’ll go if she sits
in the balcony and wears a skirt
he can slide his hand under
during the Coming Attractions.
Granny asks Gramps if he isn’t
a little old for that kind of thing
and Gramps says he’d rather put
his head under there and let Granny
box his ears with her thighs
and listen to his sighs as he harvests
fruit still ripe in the orchard.
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
This is great stuff.
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