Waiting Room
First
time seeing this doctor,
a
specialist. Took a month
to
get an appointment.
The
waiting room’s packed.
I
grab the last seat
next
to a lady in a wheelchair
knitting
something,
perhaps
for a grandchild.
I
pull out my cell phone
like
everyone else
but
just to check messages,
not
into games.
No
one’s looking at magazines,
it
seems, any more.
It’s
a cell phone world,
messages
and Tic-Tac-Toe.
Half
an hour later the lady
stops
knitting and whispers,
“Sit
back and relax, son.
Life’s
a waiting room.
We
all have appointments.
Every
name is called.
Even
those who believe
no
doctor is in."
Gardening
in Autumn
She’s
been a gardener for years
but
more and more she brings
flowers
inside to arrange a
new
garden on her mantel.
She’s
in transition, she says,
but
remembers summer fondly
in
the autumn of her life
and
sees winter coming so
she
gardens on the mantel now.
There,
winter’s not a problem.
Her
arrangement, she explains,
has
a dahlia, last flower of summer,
bold
above hydrangea leaves
burning
red in the midst of fall.
The
mugo pine warns of winter.
The
pine she’s had for 20 years,
remembers
planting it and hopes
she’s
an evergreen as well.
Tenement
Scene, Havana, 1962
Woman
in a window
brushing long hair
madly
screams
at a little boy
down
in the street
licking
an ice cream cone
some
man gave him
some
man she doesn’t know
not
the man she’s
brushing
her hair for
who
doesn't show up.
The
man with the ice cream
may
have to do.
Time
Flies
Used
to be
she’d
tell him what
to
get at the grocery store
and
he always brought it back.
Now
she makes a list.
Used
to be
she
knew by noon what
she’d
make for dinner.
Everything
from scratch.
Now she’s
in the pantry
rummaging
at 6.
Used
to be
the
two of them would cheer
the
sunrise on the patio
with
coffee imported
from
Antigua or Barbados.
Now
they sleep in.
Have
instant later.
Used
to be
they’d
sit on the porch
and
watch the sun go down
with
oohs and aahs
and a glass
of sherry.
Now
they doze in rockers
until
it’s almost 10.
Fifty
Years Later
Fifty
years ago
Jane
got on a plane
and
flew away
without
saying good-bye.
Her
parents took her, I know.
She
was only 14 but she
could have
said good-bye
to
me, the swain
who
saw her through
our
last three years
of
grammar school
when
she wore braces,
the
only girl who had them.
Fifty
years later
at
our class reunion
she
didn’t come
but
I did in a new suit.
Charlie showed
me
a class
photo of all of us
smiling except
for Jane.
The
braces, I guess.
Charlie
asked how many kids
I could name
and I named
every
one except for Jane.
Charlie said with
mock surprise,
“You
don’t remember Jane?
You two
were pretty tight,
going
to the movies and
sitting
in the balcony,
buttered
popcorn and all,
a
pretty big deal back then.
Someone
told the nuns
and
they were furious."
I
smiled and said
“Well,
Jane flew away
the
summer after eighth grade
without
saying good-bye.
I
heard ten years later
she
got rid of the braces
and
married some Swede
who
likes sardines.
He
makes his own lutefisk.
I
wish Jane and Ole well.
She
was only 14 but she
could
have said good-bye.”
{
Donal Mahoney }
