Danny Boy in the Dubliner

Out, out, damp spot said the mothers of Ireland
scrubbing the
mildew
off the walls.
So we went west
to the land of the air conditioning
and the central heating
and Disney
and the Big Mac
and the continent-slashing highway
and the dollar.

Carpenters Union
Local Fourteen
roar
Danny Boy in the Dubliner;
today they met the president
and marched down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Hank from Chicago dances on the tables,
gives all the women in the bar a shoulder massage
while we sing Oh Canada
in honor of the barmaid's mother,
and the air is electric with war;
anything is possible.
Anything.

An exile commutes on 5371

Vermilion saffron smog caps Baltimore,
the everest of air below vibrates.
I watch the crackling compound in the wing seam flake
and feel the fragile chassis take
the Jetstream higher.

The flimsy rivets bare along wing joint
Are flanked each side by metal lacking paint.
Potomac leaden, shimmers faint
through iridescent prop,
whose bullet nose fluoresces in this light.
Beyond wingtip, dragonfly contrails streak
the reddening dusk.
I'm in the air again,
still going the wrong way home.

^

Biography

Deirdre Johnston is an Irish doctor, originally from Kinvara, Co. Galway, now living in North Carolina, where she teaches and practices psychiatry at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Although she has had several professional articles published in medical journals and textbooks, these are the first poems she has submitted for publication.