Donal Mahoney- Three Poems

A Low Voice and a Nice Walk

Gramps by the fire

in his rocker hunched over

is rolling his smoke with care

when Tom, his grandson, asks,

“What’s the most important thing

to look for in a wife?”

Gramps stares into the fire intently

then finally says, “You want a wife

with a low voice and a nice walk,

a low voice because later in life

your ears give out but her odd jobs 

become more numerous 

and a nice walk because you want to

let her go first forever and make

all that extra work worthwhile.”

No Paper This Morning

Most days the newspaper hits

the lawn by four in the morning

but it's six already and I don't see it. 

I'll have to pull on my pants 

and go out to see if it's hiding 

in my wife's flowers and bushes.

She keeps adding more plants

to the jungle she's created out there 

with parrots and macaws on the way.

But instead of going out  

I tell her it's a nice morning 

and suggest she check on her roses. 

In this heat, they may need water.

And while she's out there I suggest

she scan the garden for the paper 

in case it's held hostage by the foliage. 

After coffee she sails out the door

and returns with no paper but brings 

an armful of roses, a bouquet 

I welcome more than the poison ivy 

I find every day in the paper.

Two Funerals in One Day

The alarm clock screams at 5 a.m.

and I get up to attend a funeral

50 miles away, a long drive back

to a corner of Chicago once rife

with corned beef and cabbage but

redolent today with salsa and tequila.

I head for the bathroom to shower

and brush my teeth but when

I turn the light on, I see a long 

mahogany bug, species unknown, 

glistening and motionless

on the cap of my toothpaste.

As a former caseworker in the projects

and someone with a gardener for a wife,

I have seen a variety of bugs, urban 

and agrarian, and if they behave,

I normally don't bother them,

except for mosquitoes 

that land and happen to like me. 

So I tell this bug on the toothpaste cap

that I have a funeral to attend today

and it's 50 miles away so please, 

be a good bug and move on.

Of course he doesn't move.

Instead, he twirls his antennae

and rubs his pincers together.

Finally, he says somberly 

"Can you get this cap off? 

I've been trying all night.

I hear this stuff tastes good."

As I would do later that day

for my old friend at his funeral,

I say a prayer for the bug

and send him on his way, 

a burial at sea, if you will,

down, down, down he goes

to the hymn of a flushing toilet. 

I can still hear his last words:

"My wife had octuplets.

They're under your bathtub.

Tell them I said good-bye.

And have a nice day!"

Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.