When my neighbor told me over the fence a month ago the doctor said she had two years to live,

That my parents were Irish immigrants is probably the most significant factor in my writing life. The English expelled my father from Ireland around 1920 at age 18 or so for running gun...

You’re an old man in a nice suit and tie out with your wife at a fancy function with nice people

When you were a boy in 1948 living on a block of bungalows in Chicago right after WWII you had a red wagon you pulled behind your mother

A neighbor lady I hadn’t seen in a year I heard was bedridden. Her former husband dropped by, asked if I’d to take in her trash… when I brought in my own.

If the poor we will always have with us, then the rich we will have with us as well. Our system gives birth to both. Greed is part of man’s nature,

Every day the same people at the same table at the rear of the cafeteria. The maiden, 35 at least, is gray at the temples,

It’s an old clock hanging on a wall in a small room on the third floor. We go up there

Before the Inauguration the man must divest himself of his stocks and bonds close every hotel he owns lay off hundreds of employees

For some nervous wrecks a pill or two might help. For others

A rainy Sunday and Pastor Smith is in his pulpit bellowing to the congregation, “I hope you understand

His wife takes him to dinner as she always does on his birthday wearing bright red lipstick, a color she detests but he likes.

Twin sons in different cities decked out in new suits fly home for the holidays arrive at the airport

Young hummingbird swirls and darts to the red feeder. Black cat waits below. Donal Mahoney

Can you hear me in the bunker, Le… Sorry to hear ISIS has you in a… But I’m delighted to know you’re… camouflaged in your bunker with an… Now you’re telling me ISIS is th…