Two Poems by Donal Mahoney

Envelope in the Pigeonhole

This evening
when I return to the hotel
I see in my pigeonhole
Angela’s writing
on a yellow envelope.

What excuse
will she have for not writing?
Too busy, perhaps,
stirring cauldrons of soup
while the cats dash about
licking her calves.

Or don’t the cats know enough
to lick at her calves?
Would that I were the cats
and the cats were taller.

Caseworker Determining Eligibility

Cabrini-Green Projects, Chicago

The child, age two, hammocked in the half
moon of his mother’s arms, is locked
in palsy, yet moves an eyelid as I ask,
moves the other as his mother answers,
application form interrogation.
The father was a white policeman.
“Curiosity,” the mother says. “No more.
I didn’t go with him for money.”