-Defining the time of the DiCarlo twins-

The term “Greaseball” must have been

Created by their mother.

And when the second twin was pushed out

With the same thick thud, the term stuck.

Then we see the DiCarlo twins sitting

At a leg-folding card table inside the stogie-smokey

Marconi Club on Bedford Street,

Playing cards, mouthing their double-ringer's

And drinking Bohemian beer from the bottle.

From there it’s a measured walk

Side-by-side west on Bedford

Stopping at Marcucci’s Bakery

For a half-dozen slices each.

Their twin-girth passes the billboards

Plastered with smiling young women

Smoking Viceroy cigarettes, then the bulbous

Gasoline pumps squatting at Whitey’s ESSO

Moving toward Columbus Park and the street-

Side of my house.

The DiCarlo twins dress alike

Sporting sharkskin suits like the one

Sinatra wore on television.

"Perry Como’s a stroonce".

At the corner of Quarry and Bedford

Across the street from DeSpirito Brothers Barber Shop

They stop-in at Cipolini's Macaroni Store

Collecting for the weekly “nigger pool” —

Then it’s onward to Tony LaCava’s place to tally-up.

It was there that my cousin Paul, with me
as tag-along, would knock at the door

And Mrs. LaCava would pay him for delivering

The Herald News for the week,

Always insisting she's paid-up for the month.

The DiCarlo twins are fat and smoke fat cigars

And Tony knows how to keep his mouth shut.

The entry stinks of cigar smoke and "Wildroot Cream oil".
Emma Taccovelli greets us on the stairs

Panting heavily on her way to the third floor.

Cousin Paul tells her: "we don’t know anything".

Politically, my mother and father

Wanted Stevenson,

But Eisenhower’s in the White House.

Now they tell me he built the Interstate Highway

That my father traveled every day hawking booze

To the bars and restaurants of Buzzards Bay

And points east to Orleans.

He'll use the same highway to find his way back home.

I don't remember ever seeing the fat DiCarlo twins
walking their way back from anywhere.

                                                               Quequechan