Let It Be on Monday, God
If I have to die
let it be on Monday, God,
so I won’t have to work
or call in sick.
I want the weekend
to think about it
over steins
of cold Michelob
and a carton
of Pall Malls,
two things I quit
decades ago
the day I got married.
I can’t remember
why I did that—
get married, I mean.
I know why I quit
Michelob and Pall Malls.
Sometimes we do
the right thing
for the wrong reason.
In Concert Tonight
a black girl in white skin who growls
every melancholy note and is
still looking for the man
she wants forever who
wants her even more.
But Janis would probably yell,
“Good luck with that, sister.
Shut up and sing.”
Broken Marriage
Rip had a wife who lost
an arm and a leg
and could no longer wait
on him hand and foot
so he found a woman,
a gymnast, who could
once she landed her jump
from the parallel bars.
Only then would she
do the laundry and cook
and take out the garbage.
Rip liked her better
high on the bars, her
melons bouncing as she
prepared to land her jump.
She went back to the bars
and Rip hired a laundress
and later a cook.
Life’s better now for Rip
but not for his former wife
who lost that arm and leg.
There’s nothing she can do
with the other arm and leg
not that she ever would.
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
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