Caseworker: Yams and Plantain

by Donal Mahoney

Cabrini-Green
The Housing Project
Summer in Chicago

Bienvenido’s comin’ over,
says his wife,
to ‘splain me

why the kids
have got no rice,
no beans,

how the landlord’s
shovin’ notes beneath
the door again.

In Puerto Rico Bienvenido
dug up yams,
was paid in plantain,

came over here,
brought his wife,
then his kids.

First New York,
then Chicago,
gave up yams,

gave up plantain,
just to drum
and make a living.

Tornadoes in the Parlor

Tornadoes in the parlor,
in the kitchen, in the bathroom, too,
churned every hour Dad was home.
He never worked
and with good reason.
But Sis could tell you more.
She’d help Ma board up the house
when I’d walk out the door
and ride my bike around the block.
If you find Sis today,
she’ll tell you funnels
tore the basement, too.
So what, you say?
Well, Dad’s been gone
for seven years
and Sis is somewhere.
She needs to know
there’s still no work
and, worse,
good weather here
is still a squall.

by Donal Mahoney

Griggs' Bar and Grill

In two more hours I'll have to shower,
shave and coffee-prop my lids
and otherwise prepare for day. It's 4 a.m.
and now the barkeep, Griggs,

is rushing me, the first
to come, the last to leave,
the lad who just an hour before
was coaxed to quaff one more.

At work I'll cummerbund a smile,
hold my head and sit all day,
play another endless game
of solitaire or tic-tac-toe.

Griggs' apron's off. The neon's out
and now he'll set the locks in back.
The spittle, butts and half-slain beers
he'll leave for Willie who'll soon be here

to dance his broom between
the tables and the scattered chairs
as smoothly as Kelly or Astaire.
At 6 a.m., he'll climb the ladder

near the door and aim his broom
through the transom toward the sky.
Every morning Willie puts another
bullet through the eye of sunrise.

by Donal Mahoney

Before He Goes Bare

You'll never see him again, you say,
but what if he brings to your room
a midnight poem he says
he's written for you.

Will you read it together
a couple of times, out loud,
as you have in the past?
And what if he then

shoots like a rocket
into the forest, igniting the fire,
as he has in the past.
Will you see him again?

We have the children
to think about.
That's why I'm here.
We all need to know.

by Donal Mahoney

First Tulip

by Donal Mahoney

Sometimes you sit for days
sucking yourself in
praying the right words
will fall in your ear
toboggan over the whorls
pierce the canal
and settle in your brain,
an embryonic delight.
Sometimes you sit for days
and finally the words come
and they're always a surprise
like the first tulip in April
or a sudden
orgasm for your wife.

Quicksand of That Good Woman

by Donal Mahoney

Earlier than ever this morning I wait
for copy to vacuum. It must be free of error
and the deadline is near.
But what matters today isn’t news about war,
poverty or race riots ripping the city.
What matters today is the warm quicksand
of that good woman under me again,
taking me in. Let her writhe,
let her tug at her knees, let her legs go off
in every direction. Let her take what I have
and lunge for more. I’ll be here forever,
a bee crazed by the honey
buttering her thighs.

The Landlord

by Donal Mahoney

When finally at 80 Sammy died
Polly gave me from the pantry packets
of dry noodle soup that Sammy
to the end drank down as supper.
Tureens of it, with swallows
from the pint I’d smuggle in, kept
Sammy blinking at the light
the final weeks. I lived below them
at the time and needed more than soup
but in the parlor where they laid him out
we sat on high-back chairs amid the flowers
and marveled at how straight our Sammy lay.
Who prepared him must have brought
his gnomic back, twice at least,
full force across a knee.

An Irish Enclave

South Side of Chicago,
long before Barack Obama

On bungalow porches
and out in backyards,
on hot summer evenings
they lower themselves
into green canvas chairs,
smoke and sip beer,
laugh and relive
Easter, 1916
and plot what they’ll do
when the niggers pour in
and eddy all over
the dregs of their city.

by Donal Mahoney

Someone to Talk to

by Donal Mahoney

Two evenings a week
I go to Melissa’s,
to talk and to fuck.

We talk first,
we fuck later.
Summer, fall,

winter, spring,
nothing distracts us.
We are to each other now

what we were at the start:
someone to talk to,
someone to fuck.