Nightmare
By Donal Mahoney

- -


I used to dream
in black and white
but now I dream in color.
Blood is red and real
puddling on the pavement
not some shadow
from the past.

The further back I go
the more the blood puddles
becoming ponds
becoming lakes
becoming oceans
suddenly a giant seiche
foaming across the sidewalk

throwing me back
to where I have to go
to find the hand
that held the knife
decades ago
when the blood
began to flow.

I'll tell the bastard
after all these years
it’s easy to forgive
harder to forget.
The time has come
to pray before
all is said and done.


- - -
Donal Mahoney spent two years as a caseworker in the Cabrini-Green Housing Project in Chicago, circa early 1960s, with 458 families in two high-rise buildings. Fantasies like this are the result.