long before Barack Obama
In 1962 my father toiled in Quincy,
two weeks, no more,
and saw no blacks except for
two young ladies
who moved like swans
bussing dishes
in a farmer's cafeteria.
Daisy badges on their uniforms
announced their names,
their years of service.
He still remembers how
throughout his meal
he wanted to stand,
a stranger in a
seersucker suit,
and shout:
"How can you live here?
Where, except in church,
can you clap your hands
in emancipation?"
About Donal Mahoney:
Donal Mahoney has had poems published in The Montucky Review and other publications in the United States, Europe, Asia and Africa.
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