Waiting Room
First time seeing this doctor,
a specialist. Took a month
to get an appointment.
The waiting room’s packed.
I grab the last seat
next to a lady in a wheelchair
knitting something,
perhaps for a grandchild.
I pull out my cell phone
like everyone else
but just to check messages,
not into games.
No one’s looking at magazines,
it seems, any more.
It’s a cell phone world,
messages and Tic-Tac-Toe.
Half an hour later the lady
stops knitting and whispers,
“Sit back and relax, son.
Life’s a waiting room.
We all have appointments.
Every name is called.
Even those who believe
no doctor is in.”
Remainder Bin
We write the stories
of our lives between
the bookends
of birth and death
They stay on the shelf
as long as we live
and then go in
the remainder bin
after we die.
No one buys them
and the paper’s recycled
to print the stories
of millions of people
yet to be born
except for the stories
that are never told.
They are the stories
Planned Parenthood sells.
Many years ago Miriam’s parents
took the kids for the weekend
while she and Jack motored north
to fish for trout in Montana
at Miriam's request.
Unsteady in her hip-waders
but casting with abandon,
Miriam lobbed a snide remark
and the hook snagged Jack's ear.
Jack told her not to worry,
just a tiny bit of blood.
He'd put a band-aid on it
back at the cabin
before he fried
the rainbow trout still
wriggling in her creel.
Decades later Jack is back
at the cabin with his Phyllis,
a quiet woman who
has never cast for trout.
He thinks she’ll do well.
Jack’s lost track of Miriam,
who sold the house long ago.
The kids are on their own.
He still scratches the ear
where an itch recalls
Miriam’s remark.
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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
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