Public Republic

Donal Mahoney Photo: krokodil.nana Oso, Washington 2014 Under the mud he can hear the men digging and cursing but they can’t hear him scream. The mud won’t let him scream. He was out for a walk when the mud came down the hill like lava

Donal Mahoney Photo: Nicole Lee(: It’s a 50th anniversary dinner for Bernie and Blanche at the Elk’s Hall. After dessert Blanche grabs the mike and primes the crowd by announcing, “Fifty year’s we’ve been married and Bernie’s never had a sorry day.” Then Bernie grabs the mike and says “The nights have been wonderful, too. […]

Donal Mahoney Photo: andy_hudd He’s getting older but has a life, checks his emails, loves his wife, likes to know what she’s wearing underneath. Might be pink, might be white. Nothing wrong with either.

Donal Mahoney Photo: mbtphoto When my wife is in her garden, she becomes a ballerina moving with the morning breeze through hollyhocks and roses, peonies and phlox. There is music only she can hear. It’s been that way for 30 years. I never interrupt her dance not even when the house caught fire early in […]

Donal Mahoney Photo: Sandy Brown Jensen Waterbugs scurry when the light snaps on at midnight in the bathroom the way this woman’s eyes dart when I see her dancing with a nice man but not the right man.

Donal Mahoney Photo: amiefedora When she arrives in sunlight, orchid ribbons flowing in her hair, an orchid dress rising, she finds the rest of us standing there simply unaware

Donal Mahoney Photo: Logan Brumm Photography and Design I have spent an hour lying in the sun on Joe Brickle’s farm waiting for Pedro and Pablo to fetch Little José with his sickle and scythe to cut down the high grass so Pedro and Pablo can gun their mowers over the cowlicks.

Donal Mahoney Photo: ruresolitude In 1948 Booger McNulty’s coal yard stirred constant gossip among the citizens who lived in little bungalows on narrow blocks in my far corner of Chicago. That was more than 60 years ago, a time when families took Sunday walks and went back home in time to hear Jack Benny on […]

Donal Mahoney Photo: pancakeplan Forty years older than I, Charles, in his tweed cap, stands starched in gray chino and blue chambray. For more than a year his broad tie has let the same iridescent duck fly against a vermillion sky. Like a Vatican Guard he oversees the parking lot I cut through each morning […]

Donal Mahoney Photo: Crunchy Footsteps Sue phones the hotel around midnight. Two weeks earlier, at her request, I took a room there. Three bags, half packed in the corner, are ready to go back. “There’s been a fire,” Sue says. I ask “Is everyone all right?”

Donal Mahoney Photo: iwona_kellie Odd the way the very old pick a winter day to fall, break a minor bone, be assigned to bed and death a bear napping out the winter

Donal Mahoney Photo: Poppy Photography “On the sill today the sun’s pure white. Usually it’s gold,” says Nell, propped in a smock, all frills, sipping tea turning cold as she braids white ram horns of hair high and tight to the sides of her skull.