Donal Mahoney
 

Transitions

Bright Saturday in June
and there, for once, the whole of it
and, Lord, I have no camera.

Outside the church
a wedding party waits.
A Mass is still in progress.

Before the wedding can begin
ten men, in files of five,
must carry out the corpse.




The Cab That I Caught

I remember the train
and the cab that I caught,
the train because of the meal that I had,
too many plates, the tiniest portions,
the cab because of the driver I had.

I could see in the mirror his eye
fly to the side of its socket,
a bright hummingbird there
ready to flutter into his skull.

From station to town,
the hummingbird flew
as I kept listening
to its master extol
the town’s lone hotel.



Prayer for the Priests of Mexico City

July in the streets
of Mexico City:
One of the women
one never would marry.
One of the women one sees
for an hour, for an evening.
Taco, tequila,
tequila with lemon.
Christ keep the priests
of Mexico City.


Copyright © 2009 Donal Mahoney




Donal Mahoney, a native of Chicago, lives in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. He has worked as an editor for The Chicago Sun-Times, Loyola University Press and Washington University in St. Louis. He has had poems published in or accepted by The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, Commonweal, Orbis (U.K.), Revival (Ireland), The Christian Science Monitor, The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey), Poetry Super Highway, WOW (Ireland), Public Republic (Bulgaria) and other publications.