Autumn and the leaves, crisp in the swirling air, are pheasant wings once more Donal Mahoney

From my stool in the diner I watc… the old woman with elm tree arms command the big booth in back and roar for a menu, take a half hour to read it

Tornadoes in the parlor, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, t… churned every hour Dad was home. He never worked and with good reason.

Because he works in an office and… and because she who tans anyway ha… returned from a week at the Beach, the commuters are certain she’s no… yet they rustle in their seats.

Sometimes a person can go too far, Mickey said, two stools over downing another beer,

They weren’t talking at all, back… Deep in that house, conceiving the… they weren’t talking at all, back… And they’re not talking at all, ri… Still in that house, rearing their…

Jack’s a widower. His wife died years ago so every year he takes a plane and helps his mother decorate his childhood home for Christmas.

So this Mick on the next stool, who’s as serious as Yeats but looks like Wilde, stares at me, with eyes crossed,

You never know who’ll be there though folks are dying to get in. Then suddenly you’re at the door, hat in hand,

Someone has to cut the grass Molly tells Bill dozing off in his recliner too weary to cut it. For years a vet from Vietnam

What if your parents had never met had never married had never yelled at each other

Like the poor the sparrows we will always have with us, my neighbor lady tells me as she feeds the birds