I saw Al once a month for 30 years, maybe more, doing business together. He retired to hunt bear in Alaska, hook Tarpon

A friend in England rings me up and we talk about this and that. He asks if my president’s in touch with all that’s going on and I say he should be in touch, going to

We’re upset when vandals desecrate a cemetery and disrespect the dead not so much when doctors vandalize the womb

Bug no bigger than a comma scales the wall next to my recliner. He’s climbing

Two grackles, black birds shiny and iridescent, nest again this year high and deep in our tall spruce.

Where will the lovely lady go on her diurnal walk? One child in 30 years she bore, now they do not talk. Supple, firm, her lithe legs are,

Dither of blue jays bickering at the feeder. Doves eat well below Donal Mahoney

Three times a day a train roars through a field a farm away booming like an Angus bull looking for companionship.

They’re starlets Hollywood has yet to discover, two nice young ladies who assemble sandwiches at the Subway Shop Monday through Friday at noon.

I was very small the day they bombed Pearl Harbor but I remember my mother dashing around the kitchen saying nothing to me

It’s never what she says always how she says it and how she stands when she says it and what she says

Do you remember how to tie a Windsor knot the way your father taught you on graduation day in eighth grade

In our tent we hear whippoorwills happy to see dawn dismiss the night Donal Mahoney

I should have said yes, meet you anywhere you want for lunch, even that greasy spoon with the lousy chili and corn dogs… Every five years or so we meet