MICHAEL DENNIS MOONEY -- new writings

Not what I wanted.

I say i'm a co-worker -- could I get a quick minute with her?

He, no doubt preoccupied with Notre Dame football on that afternoon,

says, "Well, could I give you her cell phone number?"   "Sure," I say.

So now i call her at noon Monday on the cell, ask her for her e-mail address,

'cause I want to send her a poem making fun of the Queens accent. She gives me the electronic mail address, so I can send her the humor piece.

I ask her how things are? The connection on the cell is terrible, she says "Fine." Gives no indication of any troubles in her life. She wouldn't ordinarily tell me much if there were relationship difficulties.

Then I sent her the Outer Borough Rhapsody,  and got no reply.

She had warned me in the past she doesn't typically reply to e-mail.

I, of course, really wanted a reply.

I told her it was from her "senior citizen admirer",  still muddying the issue,

probably fooling no one but myself. I said that it was "a satire on how people

from Queens, Brooklyn, et al. speak English,"  more muddying.

The phone connection was so terrible, it kept breaking up. I guess my next step is to invite her to lunch in order to get her to talk about her life.

Or to simply fuggetaboutit.

She is my current muse -- meanwhile little Mo Conley, who is my age, late 50's, is convinced I wrote the Celtic Face poem about her, and she has it framed and on the wall.

-- Mackey