-to protect the innocent-

Louis.
Short-Stack Louie.

Louie Ricotta 
you little punk.

your brother’s a jazz drummer.

your father’s a dead saxophonist

and they played the nightclubs—

one stretch in Newport
at the Seven Seas Club on the beach
and I know this 'cause I was there

and you amounted to

an old man who lost his only

daughter through hepatitis diagnosed

as her liver failed.

Henry.
Hank.

Hank Ricotta— 

behind the wheel
of your father’s ’56
Chevy Impala

and me

riding shotgun, counting down

in Gino
Gasperinni’s ’57 Plymouth

Fury.

Christ,
the sounds we made that night
on 24 north,—

the Chevy's glass-packs rattling,
the Fury's hard-
drinking 4 bbl hissing and

now your father’s dead
at the hands of the aneurysm,
his tenor sax
molding in the basement, reedless
behind the water-heater

and your niece is dead at a young age too;
dead as her liver;
dead as the old man's sax. 
you had an easy back-beat,
Hank Ricotta.

Shirley,

cousin Shirley.
Shirley Cappicola— 
In the big tent in the woods

at the endless reservation,
a long, craggy pathway
from the clearing where

the picnic tables were set-up

over the cracking pine-needles

at the family’s reunion-
picnic-party get-together,—
you and me deeper into the woods
than family ever knew,— my palms
introduced to your breasts
underneath the silk-
like material of your blouse.
Shirley Cappicola,
cousin Shirley.

Saint Shirley of the Resurrection in the tent.

I think you’re living.

Tom, Tommy, 

Thomas Curricio.
half an Irishman,— you long-

legged freak with a big brain,—

come stand with us on the corner

where we let

our german-beezers down
and smoke a long Pall Mall.

It's where the girls show-up

on Friday nights
the spice of their mothers' Tabu perfume

dabbed heavily behind their ears.

Tom, Thomas Curricio,—

you can stand next to me at the fence

on the street-side of right field

where Gerry Sorpressata played
Little League ball with the Clippers,
fantasizing Jackie Jensen.

Roberto,
Robert
Bobby Prosciutto—
altar-boys that we were
in a class of altar-boys who
Monsignor Pepperoni
called "Apes." ..the audacity!
and we shared the altar
of the benediction masses
cloaked in smokey incense.
Bobby Prosciutto
romantic deep-sea diver—
Bobby Prosciutto
fatso heart-attack victim.
Shirley Cappicola had a thing for you,
you and your dark
italian ways.—
but bright-eyed and fair-skinned
I showed-up at the big tent first and
rest in peace, Lucia Ricotta.