-the girl down south main-

Before the foothills of Ohio,

Before the knuckles of West Virginia,

Before the apprehensions of approaching
The borderline of Kentucky,—
But close to the Plaza Movie Theater

Where the kids went nuts on Saturday afternoons,
And southward on Main to the

Globe Four Corners and the floodgates.

I’d have travelled by horse,

By piggyback or sweeping

Spiked satellite to see her.

Northward in the backyard, at the fence of the dead

Vegetable garden, cracked with arrogant
Weeds that just won't bend, where the hungry

Praying mantis and lurking black-

Widow filled their bellies,—
The faded cherry-colored Schwinn
Stands on its last legs,

Drive-chain in a lump of grease piled beside it.

The Downtown Bus reached my stop,
Dropped me on South Main at the busy
Walko Bowling Alley, and my stomach

Followed two steps behind. Across the street,

Virginia Fox, wearing a dress and leather flats

Is sitting on a bench at Father Kelly Park

Where the city has erected a vintage Lockheed
Shooting Star

As memorial to the American dead

Of the Korean conflict. 

I'm dressed in date-ready chino slacks,

A do-nothing buckle sewn into the material

Just above the ass,—

Loafers, striped button-down shirt,

Hanging an unlit cigarette from my mouth.

Virginia smiles as I show up.

Her legs, drifting to the grass, move
Back and forth like porcelain pendulums,
One after the other,—
Leather flats barely grazing and her hands
Are clasped to the edge of the bench,—
A vision foreign, northward to the corner of

Bedford and Stinzinao Streets.

But here on South Main,
At the Globe Four Corners, realizing
The unnecessary, the cigarette is tossed
With a finger's flip on my way to the bench
Where Virginia belongs;— at the Shooting Star

In the little park across the street
From the clamor
Of the Walko Bowling Alley.


          Quequechan,
         In the neighborhood of Peter Brogi, barely born.