Donal Mahoney, a native of Chicago, lives in St. Louis, MO. 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, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Commonweal, Revival (Ireland), The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey), Poetry Super Highway, Pirene’s Fountain (Australia), Danse Macabre, Public Republic (Bulgaria), and other publications.

My Therapist’s a Lady

It’s all so simple now,
yet it took 30 years
to begin to understand.
It’s as though someone
stole the primer I had
and gave me another
in my own language.
It’s because you are
who you are
that I’ve begun
to become who I am.
That sounds too dramatic.
All you did, really, was scream
when you opened the bathroom door,
saw me wrapped in a towel,
standing at attention on a mat,
waiting in my 30th year
for the steam to clear
from the cabinet mirror,
waiting for someone
to shout, “At ease.”

Watching the Mountains Change Color

The doctor, who plans
to dismiss her this evening,
tells the nurse,
“Go ahead, send her home
with the husband and kids.
Why did we admit her anyway?
She’s fine.”
Then the husband

says something
he hadn’t mentioned at dawn
when by the hand he led her in:
“My wife stands for hours
at the window,
watching the mountains
change color, mountains
that aren’t there,” he says.

We Walk the Streets

Whenever she stops me
on my midnight rounds
just to chat about the night

I shine my flashlight in her eyes
and whisper low
so she can’t hear me,

“Lolly, it’s your intelligence
and taste I find so appealing.
Unlike others on this tour,

you will never see me stare
at the upper lip you’ve
carved on with lipstick.”

And so I tell her I must go,
provided she’ll be good.
Then she giggles,

thrilled again to be on her way,
almost as thrilled as I am
not to have to take her in.

© Donal Mahoney