Special of the Day

It’s Rocky’s Diner

but it’s Brenda’s counter,

been that way for 10 years.

Brenda has her regulars

who want the Special of the Day.

They know the week is over 

when it’s perch on Friday.

Her drifters don’t care about 

the Special of the Day. 

They want Brenda instead

but she’s made it clear 

she’s not available.

Her regular customers tip well.

Long ago, they gave up

trying to see her after work.

After awhile her drifters go  

to the diner down the street 

to see if the waitress there

is any more hospitable. 

Brenda’s regulars don’t know

she has three kids her mother

watched every day until Brenda 

took a vacation out of town,

then came back and helped her 

mother find a place of her own. 

Now Brenda’s back at the diner,

serving her regulars and 

discouraging her drifters,

while Marsha, her bride,

watches the kids.

Donal Mahoney

Tenement Scene, Havana, 1962

Woman in a window

brushing long hair madly

screams at a little boy

down in the street

licking an ice cream cone

some man gave him

some man she doesn’t know

not the man she’s 

brushing her hair for

who doesn't show up.

The man with the ice cream

may have to do.

Donal Mahoney

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."

Donal Mahoney

A Symphony Lost

Harvey at 80

is losing his hearing.

He can’t hear his wife

when she talks,

a symphony lost.

But at dusk

in the garden

alone in a lawn chair

with a glass of iced tea

cubes circling

Harvey can hear 

the whippoorwill ask

and the cricket reply

and that’s all the truth

that he needs.

Donal Mahoney

Ambrose and the Blind Man

Decades ago a small college

out in the boondocks

put Ambrose, a freshman, 

on a Greyhound Bus to attend

a student convention in New York. 

No other student wanted to go.

The college had to send someone.

On the bus Ambrose sat next 

to a blind man who spent most 

of the trip telling Ambrose, 

a farm boy, all about women.

Ambrose listened with awe.

Everything he heard was new.

Ambrose knew little about girls

but had always liked them.

For his high school prom, 

a friend set him up with a 

quiet girl who needed a date.

Ambrose liked Shirley.

Back then, TV sets were small

with the picture in black and white. 

“I Love Lucy” topped the charts.

It was Ambrose’s favorite show.

Back then, girls saved themselves 

for marriage so most of what 

the blind man told Ambrose 

was breaking news to him.

So many girls, what to do?

He didn’t have money to date.

Ambrose is now a retired farmer,

the father of nine, who often reflects

on the blind man’s advice when he 

sits in his rocker and wonders

after 50 years with Shirley if

the blind man was right to say:

“Son, it doesn’t matter how pretty 

a woman is because every woman 

has the basics any man needs.

Sample a few and find out.

Besides, you can trust me 

when I tell you they all look 

the same in the dark.”

Donal Mahoney

Man with the Can

Every morning 

before the sun comes up

there’s a feral cat on our deck 

waiting for a can of Fancy Feast.

It’s been that way for years.

It’s not always the same cat

because feral cats come and go

but barring a downpour of rain

or an overnight pile of snow

there’s always a cat 

outside our door, looking 

through the screen

waiting for service, 

sometimes licking its lips. 

The same cat can appear

at the door for weeks,

months, even years.

They’re close friends

with my wife but not with me.

We aren’t enemies but 

the cats favor my wife.

I understand why.

The cats find our house, I think,

not because the cat underground 

says the food’s good but  

somehow the cats know 

my wife was a farm girl 

that barn cats loved before 

she went off to college and 

took a job in the city.

I think they begin to believe 

my wife is one of them 

because almost every summer

she comes out in the afternoon

and sits on the deck and 

the morning cat comes back 

over the fence and hops up 

on her lap for a serious petting.

Over the years the cats and I 

have been acquaintances at best.

They know I’m the one who puts  

the can out before dawn

while my wife sleeps in. 

But not one of them has ever 

cozied up to me, the caterer, 

or why not call it as it is, 

the man with the can.

I have no problem with that

even if the best greeting

I can expect is caterwauling 

on the rare morning I’m slow 

popping the lid.

Donal Mahoney