-elegy for a third-bagger-

When they told me Frankie Texiera

Died from his heart attack

Reclined in his La-Z-Boy,— 

Belly curved like a watermelon

Cable-guide tucked

Between simulated leathers,
Remote at the ready,

Wife admonishing from the kitchen

“Jesus Christ Frankie! Lower the damn thing!”—

Kids on their own, lives of their own,

His open mouth too wide for sleep,

His eyelids dropped
Like lazy cracks at permanent rest

Cutting the light. Texiera at third

Fourth in the order

Clean-up in the order, pantomiming
The sweep of the tag, the art of the tag,

The backyard stands at capacity crowds
At the foot of the smokestacks of the Pepperell
Mills, near the park near the church,

Sweeping the tag through the dirt of the yard

To the edge of a lid, over and over.

Over and over..

                               Quequechan