e. f. danehy

Listen little girl, lest you forget your heritage: once you dreamed

of the angelic queen who conquered a nation and mothered a king,

but now your dream has slipped between the cracks you skip while

clutching at your basket with bare fingers. They say everything is relative

yet old winds brush from recollection the lore that ties

our history through webs of generations, fading into mist.

The climbing ivy of ivory women—paling beside husbands

who won the bread you sprinkle on the forest path behind you—

shiver as you tread unthinking on roads not traveled by your kind,

staring cross-eyed at the brilliance before you. You grew tall

without blackened gunpowder in your lungs, so you skip careless

of the ravens feasting in your wake, moving haplessly ahead.

Is fate wrapped in trappings of the Past, dressed as new but carrying

scents and echoes of the Named and Used? Your grandmother

did not have large teeth—can you not smell her scrubbed scent,

nor feel the patched wrongness of her gown? She made the steel-bellied

trip for your salvation, but has salvation found you? You have melted

into new worlds lost in old translation, colors swirled and fogged.

Listen here my daughter, and see what you ignore: the saints replaced

the idols in the temples of the past, a subtle change, a trick—

we have no tricks, have you forgotten that, or are your eyes blinded

by staring hard at reflected light? I have told you not of ghosts but

stories meant to keep you strong. Do not lose your lore-strings, my love!

Stay tied to the mast so you keep your balance in the wind.

by E. F. Danehy

first published in the Oakland Review, Vol. 31, 2006.

From my position under the dinner table,

I can see more of their whittled, worn-out

lives than they know. The father, my father,

sits with rattling oxfords; I can almost see

his lips itching for another stolen cigarette

on the porch after this dinner. His wife scuttles

from the blue-tiled kitchen, dragging the wafts

of aged ham and split-pea through to the cold-

floored dining room, its immense table legs

separating filled seats with a subtle dissecting

space. The women laugh, nieces’ young ankles

crossed hiding sins beneath bare pantyhose,

sisters’ old loafers stained and muddied with

years of long walks over potholes, while men,

grave men with gravelly voices weave brave tales

of bass fish and lost love. Grandchildren swing

patent leathers with frilled socks and sing, “I want

to eat,” to the melody of Beethoven’s Fifth. I take

my seat next to the wheelchair at the head, brakes

tightly closed as if he’ll roll down the street too

fast for anyone to catch him. His motionless feet

have felt more life beneath them than ever I could

wish to tread. He and I sit listening to the vibrating

air and share a secret only old dogs ever know.

E. F. Danehy

first published in the Oakland Review, Vol. 30, 2005.

I’m standing shin-deep in the murky brown water

of the Bronx River that cuts my neighborhood

secretly in half, flows under the too-close houses,

between razor-green fences, under the leaf-strewn

streets, and feeds into the real thing in the end.

I threw a tennis ball in there once and imagined

someone in the Sound finding it bobbing off their dock,

and throwing it to their yellow Labrador. But this part is mine,

from its tadpoles and flowing water to its scarred concrete

and stone bottom. I’m building a stepping-stone bridge

across the stream so we don’t get our sneakers wet when

we cross to the other side. The rain always washes most

of our work to the ocean, but no one there is gonna pick

up our rocks and throw them back to us. On the dirt

above the stream, my friend stands watch, pulling leaves

apart by the veins and throwing the torn pieces into the

water while I stack rocks and wade in the foggy mud.

I just make sure we walk around the empty, pot-holed

streets long enough afterward for the silt to squish out

of the sides of my blue, beaten shoes so no one notices.

They’re my stream shoes and I’ll hide them under my bed,

drying stiff and grey, ready for another adventure tomorrow.

by E. F. Danehy

first published in the Oakland Review, Vol. 30, 2005.