It’s Not for the Usher to Ask
Many churches today
have a food pantry that never
had a pantry before.
I attend a church like that.
Some folks are well-fixed,
others poor, most betwixt.
Some had money before
but not enough now to pay
the mortgage and then buy food
so the pantry helps them
the same way it helps clients
it has helped for years.
Some folks in the pews quietly
support the pantry with
checks and canned goods
enabling the nouveau poor
to stand in line with the
forever poor on Mondays.
A neighborhood baker slips
into the church Sunday mornings
just prior to the end of service
and quietly stacks his trays
of unsold bread in the dark foyer.
He says nothing and disappears.
No one seems to know
who he is but the hungry
love his bread and word
of its excellence has reached
the woman who leaves church early
and always grabs two loaves
of French baguettes and is
out in the parking lot long
before anyone else and
drives off in a red Mercedes.
Perhaps she’s on unemployment,
low on food stamps or is still
making payments on the car.
It’s not for the usher to ask.
I simply hold the door.
Show or Tell
Some poets show.
Others tell.
Poets who show
use metaphor, simile,
rhythm and stories
to paint a picture
readers can see
then decide for themselves.
Poets who tell
are linear folk who
mean well but yell
so readers won’t miss
the cure for society’s problems.
Their straight lines are neon
so readers won’t have to think.
Infrastructure Swallows a City
It was an ancient city.
All the young people left
as soon as they could
but the old remained
in their mortgaged huts
surrounded by evergreens
that offered a haven
for cardinals and jays,
robins and finches.
No matter the season
birds flew from tree limbs
to feed on seed and suet
put out by too many widows
in slippers and aprons and
too few wives wearing
rouge and lipstick
for terminal husbands they
planned to stack on pyres.
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
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