 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. His fiction and poetry have appeared in various publications, including The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, The Christian Science Monitor, Commonweal, Guwahatian Magazine (India), The Galway Review (Ireland), Public Republic (Bulgaria), The Osprey Review (Wales), The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey) and other magazines. Some of his work can be found at http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html#sthash.OSYzpgmQ.dpbs Breakfast with Ted No one goes to the patio now except at night when Ann goes out to spread old bread and sunflower seed on the small table for birds to eat at dawn. The next morning she gets up early and watches the birds from the breakfast nook where she and Ted would sit and marvel at the pecking order. First the sparrows arrive and eat as fast as possible before the cardinals and jays come and take command. Then the starlings land and raise a ruckus even when the table is theirs alone. The starlings leave like jets on a mission and in just a few minutes two doves drop down. One walks behind the other and they eat whatever is left behind. It’s no wonder Ann’s partial to one of the doves. He reminds her of Ted and lets the other dove walk ahead and eat the best of what is left. His feathers are always perfectly in place, same color as Ted’s hair. Drumstick and Thigh Young Tim goes to Zaire to write his dissertation in African Studies. While there he meets and marries a beautiful librarian darker than he is, flies her home to meet the family. Tim's father asks his mother if she knew about Margot. Mother says she didn’t but she’s not surprised. On Thanksgiving Day Tim likes the dark meat, the biggest and meatiest drumstick and thigh. Confetti Waiting for a Parade As autumn turns colder there’s only one moth fluttering at midnight around the porch light. He’s the last of the flock that danced all summer in the glow of the night. Confetti that never fell on a holiday parade. A Bride for Mr. Fenster Three sisters single in their 40s gather 'round the fire on a night of thunder to figure out which sister should marry Mr. Fenster, a widower in his 90s now. He proposed last week to all three of them and said he would marry one and provide a nice home for the other two. Mr. Fenster owns a farm down the road a mile or so. Worth a lot of money he buried a wife a year ago. He's mourned enough, he says, and wants to marry a nice lady who will make him happy. Mabel and Maude say Millie should be the bride. After all, she's the youngest of the three, can cook and clean and is young enough and strong enough to lift Mr. Fenster on and off. Millie says no way. Biker at the Drugstore It’s a very busy drug store with seats along the wall where folks who wait for refills sit and sometimes chat but as I discover you can leave the store worse off than when you walk in. The fellow next to me's a biker as his attire says, a red bandana around his head a black leather jacket with zippers dashing everywhere. I’ve never met a biker but everything is fine until he presses something in his neck and says his vocal chords were harvested by cancer. I lie and say I understand but then he adds he's been told he now has liver cancer. He’s picking up some meds he hopes will let him live. The doctor says six months. Again I lie and say I understand but who am I to understand. I’ve never had cancer. I tell my wife later, next to marrying her, the smartest thing I’ve ever done was quit two packs a day and vodka straight no chaser on the weekends. That was 50 years ago. She says marrying her was nowhere near the smartest thing. Quitting all that stuff was better. I suspect my biker friend if he had another chance at life would join me.
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