Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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I'd never steal a poem
or any of its shining facets
but I'd take the mood

a poem is born in
if the poem is smiling.
A lot of poems smile

but lately mine
can only scowl.
So when I read

a poem written
in the daylight by
a soul who's

painting clouds
against a brilliant sky
as if the clouds

were butterflies
too lovely to let go
and fly away,

that's the mood
I want with me
every midnight

in the basement
when I feed the ghosts
I can't allow upstairs.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.