-God on our side-

1.
my friend, like myself

was an altar boy
and he wonders comically now

why he wasn’t

one of the sought-after,

one of the chosen few to star in performance,
a locked sacristy's twilight delight.

I'm found wandering around in my head

recalling the night of the great

circle-jerk at Gerry Marretti’s house

sitting over his father’s neighborhood market

where my mother, one of six mother's save our host's at the jerk-off,
signed-off on old man Marretti's weekly ledger
listing the necessary sliced italian meats.

now there's seven of us

beating our meats

over Marretti’s Market at the corner

of Bedford and Wall streets.

2.
I'm with Priest the night before,
nearing twilight

in what we called the “little park,” a tar-

surfaced slab with playground swings,

a merry-go-round and two listing, net-less hoops

comprising our basketball court adjacent

to the larger, more historically significant

Columbus Park which was in essence,

a Little League baseball field.

my house was on Bedford Street,

half-a-block from Marretti's,

across the street from the first base line

at the left field fence.

the church of "Our Lady of the Holy Rosary"

sat atop a small hill facing Wall Street

which ran north to south from the facade

intersecting Bedford running east to west

where in another night

seven kids would whack-off to the fatty scents

of peppered prosciutto and sliced cappicola.

3.
Priest is shooting "S" for HORSE, flat-footed

with an awkward two-hand chest maneuver

from the foul-line where the ball floats (no rotation)

and sinks to the tarmac before it gets close to the rim.

I'm on "no penalty letter" and he's done for.

Priest's shiny black Pontiac is idling beyond the fence

but he'll have no luck with me this late afternoon.

4.
near twilight on the night before the night
of the great circle jerk of 1953 and the hollow,

metallic ring of a basketball dropping to the tarmac
resonates in an otherwise vacant,
quiet little park in a game of HORSE.— me and Priest.

                                                            quequechan