-a tale of two men-

My grandfather wore suspenders
In order to hold his pants up.

My father wore a belt
In order to accomplish the same mission.

My father’s trousers were steam-iron pressed.

The pants of my grandfather were soiled
With dried drops of Port he'd press in the cellar.

My father sold the stuff.

Not the Port of my grandfather,

Fermented in a cask of musty wood

Standing in a lump-walled plastered cell

Away from the dirigible-like

Furnace always threatening to blow

Three families to smithereens.

My grandfather drank the Port he made.

My father dropped his pocket sales-ledger

At the end of a long day’s tediousness
Into a small re-located ashtray on top the out-of-place
End table next to the kitchen door

At the entryway on the side of the house

Along with his car keys and a fresh, unopened

Pack of Chesterfield.

He’d need these things in the morning.

The front door received special guests of the family 

And solicitors of insurance companies, who were scooted
To the side door where the little end table sat.
My parents listened to the insurance salesmen.

“We’re betting on you living.”

Under the grapevine,
My grandfather and his friends

Would gather at the table to drink its yield.

My father drove a Buick to the ocean and back everyday
Selling booze to the bars and restaurants on the Cape.
My grandfather died from complications of diabetes.

My father would later die of nearly everything else.

                                                        Quequechan

  

-nature at both ends-

when the starlings murmured,

pinpricking then sweeping the sky 

like blankets on the line in the wind,

I thought that old Pete Pieroni

would have a field day with his shotgun

picking them off, and fishing the floaters
from the water,

later to be feather-plucked and dropped

into the slow bubbling

pot of tomato sauce simmering

on the gas stove in the kitchen

for the flavor he craved.

starlings, sparrows or any small bird would do;

but this time I’m struck by the beauty.

any lake or field, meadow or still-

footed stance at the junkyard fence,
quick at the trigger,

will work for old Pete's passion for flavor.

he kept a brown paper bag at his side.

he shot what he needed for supper that night.

the beauty he sees will be in the pot.

so the next time you see the starlings

painting the overcast in their murmuration,

and you watch the beauty of them sweeping

the grey with living points of black,

and two muffled cracks disturb the atmosphere

and some of the starlings drop as beautifully,

corkscrewing

down, down, down,... 

you’ll know old Pete Pieroni is hunting

to flavor the sauce of tomatoes with starlings,

soon to be simmering in the pot on the kitchen stove.

                          

   

-the worth of some things-

From my city, from the cloth trade,

The needle trade, the overpowering mills,

The smoke of their stacks, particles of ash,—

Particles of cotton, the colors of dyes,

Evaporated drops of sweat, strains of muscle,

Bloodshot eyes,

Entrenched behavior,—  the tedious labor,

Came an incalculable diligence.

My mother and her sisters labored

At their sewing machines making hats,—

Fedoras, mostly of cloth, hats sometimes of straw,

A dense, pliable straw more clay than of straw.

"Bundles" were delivered

To the tenements we lived in twice a week.

This was Homework to the textile worker,

A practice of work-at-home, often forced-

Voluntary, now illegal. 

Neck-high, cavern-deep corrugated boxes

Filled with leather bands

And sheaves of thin wire to be threaded

Through the loop of the leather forming the band

End to end with the wire press-fitted
Into a little transparent plastic sleeve which held
The band securely for the morning's sewing.

These were assembled by all of us as we watched

Nighttime television.

In the early morning, the Bundles were collected by truck

Dispatched from the Mill.

Then we walked to school, me, my brother and my sister;

My father left for work selling liquor "down the Cape" 

And my mother and her sisters

Went to work at the sweltering Wagner Hat Shop.

They sewed the leather bands into

The sweeping Fedoras;—

The hats of Bankers and Laborers.

The hats of Grandfathers and Movie Stars.

The hats of the Wise-guys and the Bums.

These were the hats seen resting
On the Sunday pews;
The hats of the Bleachers, the Box-seats,

And the hats of the ranging Liquor Salesmen.

My young mother in the Mill, and us on the rug;
Her young sisters and their kids too,—
Made those hats.

                                               Quequechan

-Variable positions-

1.

The Studebaker Starlight
Parked at the ESSO station's pumps
Across the street

Couldn’t seem to make up its mind.

Maybe it would move swiftly forward

Like an arrow toward Saint Sebastian.

Maybe it would retreat
In the direction of its own demise.

At the wall of the entry to his house
Next door to my own house,

The chickens

Were hanging upside-down
Dressed in their soiled feathers.

The entryway is screened,
But the screen is torn at the edges.
This is where the flies enter.

Inside, water is beginning to boil in the deep,
Twin-handled pots on the gas-stove  

And Uncle Pete is positioned
In the dank entry with a sharp knife.

Wings are tied-down to their breasts
With yarn and the bloodless

Legs are tightly bound at the wall
Where throats are slit,— the blood-
Drops tapping into the shallow
Pans receiving them on the entry's floor.

2.

She'd walk down the grand

Marble staircase of our high school,
Clutching her books
To her breast with folded arms
And I'd be there, standing
On the floor below waiting for her.

When the chickens bled-out
From their opened necks

My Aunt Olympia plucked them, washed them
And submerged them into

The waiting pots of boiling water, the greying
Claws piercing the waterline as if in agony.

3.
Outside, we'd walk together
Between two buildings to her next class

Where she knew I’d be waiting by the opening
Door at its end.

                         

                             for Elaine San Marcos

breaking-in the new glove

olive-oil the pocket.

rub the olive oil into the pocket
with a soft cloth.

oil the pocket, not the fingers.

move the fingers
in and out.

in and out.

in and out.
pull the thumb-tab.

don’t be afraid.

pull it out all the way.

move the fingers in and out.

press a baseball into the pocket

and close the fingers tightly around it.

tie the glove with twine
tie it up.

don’t use tape.

tie a knot —
the same knot as your sneakers.

clear a space
on the bedroom dresser
below the mirror

away from the spills
of the frantic kitchen.

it’s okay to pick it up.

feel it. smell it.
take a deep whiff.
breathe it in. 

don’t open it.

don’t open it.

don’t open it.

from the bed with your head

propped-up on the pillow
it makes a cool-blue
reflection in the mirror.

fight the closing eyelids.

darkness.

morning.

ready for school.

don’t open it.

it’s okay to pick it up.

nobody touch this!

leave it right here!
just like this!

home from school.
there it is.

don’t open it.

one day to go.
don't open it.

one more day.

one day to go.

Quequechan, c. 1952

-genesis-

saltwater takes a bite of the hollow.

in time it gives the land back, toying

like a cat with its mouse. the wind,
saltwater’s inconstant accomplice,

lends its breath to the exhibition
forming clay, building, packing
and sculpting for the saltwater’s pleasure.

it's the saltwater renders the mortar pliable.

it’s the nature of saltwater to do this.

the clay of the hollow has little to do
but stay put, flexing its recurring muscle.

there’s a stretch of outer beach where
the clay pounds at Newcomb Hollow
struggle to reach upward, heavy-footed,
angling inland, forming a high chaplet where

danger signs are driven, warning adventurers
to this place of the instability of its cliffs.

the Cape has an arm of ice and clay,
bending into itself as if from a joint of bone.

saltwater changes everything.

the gods have hands of saltwater.

                            For Josh D'Elia and Jenny Cefaly
                            Truro, Wellfleet, Massachusetts
                             

-Idle wind-

Saturday morning

Running through Columbus park
In foul territory at the third base line,
Moving over to tag the bag,

Cutting through the little playground

Built for the children, passing the wooden

Swings with their safety bars attached,

The aluminum slide, and with a strong
Push of my hand, spinning the empty
Merry-go-round, tilted on its axis,—
Cutting a quick left at the gate,
Running fast.
I'm over ten minutes late for catechism class.

Down the stairs in a hurry to the basement
Hall of the Holy Rosary Church;—

The hall where the Italian-American

Veterans of Foreign Wars

Hold their Friday night meetings, bullshitting and

Eating capocollo sandwiches  

Prepared by the Women's Auxiliary of the Italian-

American Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Inside, the kids of the neighborhood

Surrounding a folding banquet table are reading

Their catechism booklets.

Monsignor Pannoni scowls;

Looks up at his tardy child and scowls again.

An unoccupied metal chair, un-folded, invites,

As I pull the rolled catechism booklet
From the back pocket of my dungarees
Sitting down to face the music as Peter,

Paul and all the Saints drop on my head.

Gerry Martelli, sitting across the table
Looks me over,

Smirking, shaking his head. A great and oily
Wave of hair built upward, crests and stays put.
Shirley Bertoncini sits blank-faced;

Her blouse threatening the stressed, little pearl buttons.

Cynthia Lanzesera is reciting the Seven Sacraments.

I came in on “Penance,”

Sat down on “Anointing of the sick,”

Fidgeted on my metal chair during “Holy Orders,”—

And at Lanzesera's “Matrimony” close,
(Bringing down the house)

Monsignor growls: “Got all that, William?”

“Yes, Monsignor.”

“Good. What are the first three

Sacraments of the Church, William?”


What a question.
I wasn't even even down here for those.

Look at Martelli,

Smirking and shaking his Wildroot head.

His old man owns the little food market

On the corner of Wall and Bedford

Where the Women’s Auxiliary of the Italian-

American Veterans of Foreign Wars bought

The fatty, sodium-saturated capocollo,

Assisting in the future heart attacks of our heroes.


The sun is bright this morning.
Cousin Paul is linking the broken
Chain of my Schwinn.
The television's horizontal hold is being steadied
By Phil, of "Phil's T.V. Repair," on his knees
At the bowels of a significant part of my universe.
Later, in the house at my sister's pajama party
With a bunch of her girlfriends staying overnight
Lighting the atmosphere with laughter and music,
I'll jockey for position at her door.


Inside the basement hall I'll speak the first
Three entries looking into the smirk of your eyes, Martelli:

“Baptism,... Confirmation, and, umm...

Eucharist,— Monsignor.”

                                     Quequechan

     

-Maybe-

"Bad Girl" by The Miracles,

Slow dancing with Sharon-Lee Grundy

And the natural physiology kicking in
Has me stepping cautiously

Aware of the swelling beneath my pressed chinos.

The basement of Sharon’s house in Westport

Is finished in cheap paneling with odds-and-ends

Not good enough for upstairs display. But it has

A secret little room toward the furnace with a neat,

Floral shower-curtain doorway.

That’ll be the place all the stimulated boys

Will dance toward with their girls tonight.

But it’s Sharon’s house and she's with me,

Fox-trotting slowly toward the curtain.

Sharon’s been around the block,

And moving close, aware of the situation,

Her face is glancing from cheek to cheek

To take a look.

When her face comes back, her mouth is at my ear.

Wind Song perfume evaporates from her skin,

And with Smokey high-singing: “..She made me see,

How love could be..”  we dance our way in that direction.
I'm sixteen, she's fifteen, and this is how it goes
As I dance in Westport, Massachusetts with a girl named
Sharon-Lee Grundy.