-if that’s how it works-

I might as easily

not have been born.

showing-up to his part-time job,
the young man who would become my father

might have fallen from the slippery
bed of the lumbering, LaCava & Sons ice truck
in the midst of summer deliveries,

or tumbled from the tailgate while

hauling kerosene vessels in winter
to the tenement space-heaters. 

he might have broken his neck at play
diving into shallow waters from the granite

cliffs of the treacherous ledge.

he actually did break his neck

playing tackle football with his buddies
in the Columbus Park League of 1934
against the invading roughnecks of Ruggles Park
while running into the B gap off right guard
from the beautiful single wing.

(his full recovery was not considered an option

during antiseptic deliberations

of the doomsday prognosis at Union Hospital)

or he might have married the plump

Francis DePola, in which case

I’d have wound-up no more than half myself

(if that’s how it works)— or,

he could've been killed during World War 2
on Military Police patrol, bumped by a taxi
while in foot pursuit of a drunken swabbie 
from San Diego somewhere in Minneapolis,— or

Annie Pieroni, the young brown-eyed beauty,
corner of Bedford and Stinziano, first floor,
might have said to him when the time came

to answer his question:  –– "No! You're crazy!"

but she didn’t.
so here I am early in the morning writing this about all of that.