An Email on Sunday
Some emails
are more difficult
to receive
from a child
long out of college
the daughter who writes
her cancer is back
but the doctor says
with chemo and surgery
things should be fine
and all the while
the father wonders
why she didn’t call
at midnight and let
the telephone scream
hysterically in the night
to deliver the news
a computer is too
cold a messenger
to deliver hot terror
on Sunday morning
while machine guns
of sleet drive
bullets too bright
into the ground
Donal Mahoney
