Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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Great victories in youth,
some of them remarkable,
are recorded in a scrapbook

lost for many years
only to emerge decades later
when age affords the leisure

to rustle through a dresser drawer
and find a scrapbook underneath
an ancient uniform, some jocks and socks.

Cheers from games spring off the page
as do tall teammates dead for years,
their jump shots perfect, their laughter loud.

This will be the last reunion,
he knows that for certain.
The scrapbook will become

a game of none on none.
A doctor told him yesterday
he's dribbling out the clock.


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Donal Mahoney has been reading the obituaries for years--ever since his father told him very seriously when he was just a tyke that "there are people dying now who never before died." Information like that can be hard to come by when you're young.