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Poem – The Widow Next Door (By Donal Mahoney)

The Widow Next Door
 
Every Saturday 
when the sun is out
and it’s hotter than Hades
 
Monica next door 
raises her garage door
early in the morning 
 
and leaves it up 
long past noon as if 
Herm will walk out
 
at any minute 
oily and greasy
needing to clean up  
 
the way he used to 
every Saturday
for 30 years until 
 
liquor ate his liver.
At night Monica
can still hear  
 
the tall Marine
fingering Taps 
over Herman’s grave.

Author Bio:

donal-mahoney
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He has had fiction and poetry published in various publications in the U.S. and elsewhere. Among them are The Galway Review (Ireland), The Recusant (England), The Missing Slate (Pakistan), Guwahatian Magazine (india), Bluepepper (Australia), The Osprey Journal (Wales), Public Republic (Bulgaria), and The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey). Some of his earliest work can be found at http://booksonblog12.blogspot.com and some of his newer work at https://www.antarcticajournal.com/donal-mahoney-recent-works