Dingle, Ireland
Donal Mahoney
The bathroom carpet,
wall to wall, is blue,
the lightest blue,
to complement
the bowl and ceiling.
Apropos the moment:
I bend the waist
and heave the gristle
from last evening's steak.
Tomorrow I shall row again
to see those ancient men
in caps and coveralls
stand like statues
while they talk
and tap gold embers
now and then
from clay pipes
forever glowing.
I'll go there
for the dinner hour
to see them once again
fork potatoes,
whole and steaming
in their peelings,
from big kettles filled
at dawn by crones
forever kerchiefed
and forever bent.
Every morning
you can hear the women
sing their hymns
a cappella
as they genuflect and dip
black kettles
in the sometimes still
sometimes foaming sea.
Donal Mahoney, a native of Chicago, lives in St. Louis, Missouri. 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, Orbis Commonweal, The Christian Science Monitor, Revival, The Beloit Poetry Journal, The Istanbul Literary Review, The National Catholic Reporter, Tipton Poetry Journal, Poetry Super Highway, Public Republic and other publications.