New Poetry by Donal Mahoney

Continuity

I'm just a dog barking,

I tell my wife who's upset

with my yakking on and on

at our weekly meeting

on a Saturday morning

stationed in our recliners

facing forward as if we were

in the same row on a plane 

with the middle seat empty.

I tell her eventually

any dog will stop barking

if you give him a bowl of kibble

or let him in the house

or find his ball and play fetch.

Or do what my mother did

when I was an infant bawling 

and woke my father who faced 

work as a lineman the next day.

My mother would get out of bed,

grab her old bathrobe

and whisk me to the rocker.

Even to this day,

many decades removed,

it's the best solution:

Put a breast in my mouth

and silence will ensue.

Eventually I may even coo.

- Donal Mahoney 2013

Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.