Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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The final years dear Mother she
was never, well, what actors call “on location.”
Physically, of course, we found her

everywhere:
the parlor reading,
the kitchen ironing,

the basement weeping,
unlike Father whom we never found
though he was always there.

On Sundays when he went to Mass,
he’d stay behind, peering.
Like Queeg, he’d stare

from under or behind
whatever he wasn't
hiding in front of.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.