The World in the Year 3000
There are pockets
of them everywhere,
quiet and discreet.
Usually they meet
once a week
in private homes
in basements
some call catacombs.
Depending on the group
a minister will preach,
a priest say Mass
a rabbi teach.
Elsewhere you will find
a mosque on almost
every street.
Rusty Nails
After all the tests
and the doctor’s explanation
she thinks of them not
as 20 points of cancer
but as 20 rusty nails
hiding here and there
at awkward angles
somewhere in her abdomen.
According to the doc,
the nails could fail
at any time one by one
or else collapse en masse.
More chemo is an option.
With three kids, it might
be worth another try.
Aging in Place
It’s time to leave the man alone.
He’s getting old, his wife says.
He’s really slowing down.
He’s always been a man
occupied with one thing
or another.
No half way with him.
Now he finds harmless things
just to please the wife.
Three packs a day he smoked,
drank a pint every night, then
quit both for her.
Stopped chasing women too
when a widow nuts as him
called the wife.
All he does is weed
their garden beds and lawn
four seasons of the year
with the wife upstairs
at every window
keeping an eye on him.
Who else in winter shovels
piles of snow off garden beds
and lawns just to weed?
He’s getting old, she says.
He’s really slowing down.
It’s time to leave the man alone.
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
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