First Tulip
Sometimes you sit for days
sucking yourself in
praying the right words
will fall in your ear
toboggan over the whorls
pierce the canal
and settle in your brain,
an embryonic delight.
Sometimes you sit for days
and finally the words come
and they're always a surprise
like the first tulip in April
or a sudden
orgasm for your wife.
The Two of Them
After all these years
the two of them,
one of them alive
the other dead,
scare me still
despite the prayers.
It’s been that way
since childhood.
I love them both.
I’m deeply grateful
for all they’ve done.
Always will be.
But I don’t think Dad,
dead for decades,
would understand.
I hope God does.
Six-Pack Uncle Jack
Sing a song of six-packs
and quickly tell me where
Uncle Jack has gone
drunk but debonair.
He can’t remember where
he left his Philomena
tall and fetching fair.
He wants to find her.
She’s the one
he wants to marry
but he's lost her number
and is now afraid
he may never dance
with her again unless
perhaps in paradise where
she’s waiting, he has heard,
lighting up the brightest star
far from hades where
Jack has a reservation.
He’ll cancel that to dance
with her among the clouds
but this will halt all revelry
for Uncle Jack on earth.
Not even one more six-pack.
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
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