Cockfight at the Bus Stop
As the snow swirls around them,
an old man in a wheelchair
uses sign language to tell
another old man standing
at the bus stop, “Friend,
you creak when you walk.”
Neither can hear any better now
than when they were students
at a school for the deaf 60 years ago.
They learned signing by writing
in the air with fingers honed
on the whetstone of banter.
Amiable as ever, the creaky man
counters with fingers quicker than
beaks in a Havana cockfight.
“Old friend, how can you tell
that I creak when I walk?
Do my knees sign that well?”
Donal Mahoney
