Donal Mahoney- A Poem

Remembering a War We Tend to Forget

I will never forget him

but I can’t remember his name

it’s been so long ago.

Maybe I never knew it. 

But I think of him on days

America celebrates its veterans—

Memorial Day, July 4th,

Veterans Day, D-Day.

The wars are all remembered 

but not so much this one.

He was Billy's big brother

and more than 60 years ago

Billy and the rest of us

were in 8th grade watching

him climb a ladder

and hammer a hoop 

on the roof of a garage

so we could play ball

while he went to Korea. 

I saw him again when he 

came back from Korea.

He was walking in circles 

in the family’s backyard 

smoking Pall Malls,

one after another, talking 

to no one we could see.

We were practicing at 

the hoop he nailed up 

before he went to Korea.

We were seniors

in high school then 

and had to be ready. 

We practiced all summer

for the season ahead.

Donal Mahoney

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Donal Mahoney grew up in a neighborhood in Chicago

where most young men were drafted if their parents

didn’t have enough money to send them to college. 

His parents scrimped and had enough to send him.

No college loans back in the Fifties.