long before Barack Obama

In 1962 my father toiled in Quincy,

two weeks, no more,

and saw no blacks except for

two young ladies

who moved like swans

busing dishes 

in a farmer’s cafeteria.

Daisy badges on their uniforms

announced their names,

their years of service.

He still remembers how

throughout his meal

he wanted to stand,

a stranger in a 

seersucker suit,

and shout:

“How can you live here?

Where, except in church,

can you clap your hands

in emancipation?”

— Donal Mahoney