2/7/2017 0 Comments Three Poems by Donal MahoneyAnd Go for a Birdsong Ride Spring will eventually arrive, Tom tells his youngest daughter looking out the window at the snow. Take heart, he tells her, and listen for the blue jays when they build a nest in the sycamore and chase away the other birds that fly unwelcome into the tree hoping also to start a family. He tells his snowbound daughter once she hears the blue jays' ruckus spring will be here and she can wear her jeans and pretty yellow jacket, get on her tricycle with the other girls and go for a birdsong ride. An Askew Life On a clear day in the day room he will tell anyone he has had an askew life. When he was a small boy out for a Sunday walk with his parents his father would shout not to walk on the edge of the sidewalk and in grammar school the nuns would get upset because he didn’t always write between the lines and at jobs after college despite doing things well and getting promotions he had a habit of being late and in a long otherwise satisfactory marriage his wife would get upset because he didn't put stamps on envelopes straight. On a bad day in the day room he will tell anyone none of those people is still alive. At Least Now I Can Say Goodbye Someday you’ll be in bed dying like I am now and people you love and some you don't will come by to say good-bye. They don’t know what to say because we’re all amateurs at dying, no experience required. All I know is that I’ll be leaving any day now and my visitors know some day they’ll be leaving too but unlike me they don’t know when. Not knowing when would scare me more. At least now I can say goodbye. Bio: Donal Mahoney, a product of Chicago, lives in exile now in St. Louis, Missouri. His fiction and poetry have appeared in various publications, including The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, The Christian Science Monitor, The Chicago Tribune and Commonweal. Some of his online work can be found at http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html#sthash.OSYzpgmQ.dpbs= Donal Mahoney, 1956
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