-"Pumpsie"-

July 21, 10:18 AM ––

passing the stone wall approaching the house,

an old man wearing a faded baseball jersey
designated as number "12", walks his dog.

due to multiple machine washings

and numerous trips to the ballpark under the season's sun,
the name of our hero is bleached-out

so it’s not clear to me who it is number "12" represents.

who knows how far down the road they’ll go,

this old man and his side-dog companion,––

or if they’ll reach the banks of the bay expanding southward to the open sea,––

or at least step to the line of demarcation as far as public access allows.

I don’t know if the dog's had its piss yet.
It seems to be inclined to wait it out for the right sniff. 

who knows what else the dog might have in mind.

and who knows what it is old number "12" is thinking.

certainly not me.

                                            

-waiting for my girl at the entrance to the Clambake Pavilion-

I waited for my girl at the ticket entrance
to the open-air Clambake Pavilion
"No Ticket No Chowder"

in the frantic amusement park
when she walked to the "Ladies Rooms"
to pee and freshen up.

I waited a respectful distance
from the tense line of women who had to go, the line
ready to snap into chaos at the slightest provocation

and although we had no intention of slipping inside
the thick, unsettling Clambake Pavilion without tickets

it's as good a place as any to meet-up.

waiting there, the monotone drone of slurping clam chowder broth,
(New England style, it should go without saying)
augmented by undertones of deep murmurings of ecstasy,
seemed to be the functional exercise of a well-oiled apparatus.

after a slow, painful passing of time
I spotted her negotiating the density

of the crowd milling around the grounds

none of whom, save the little kids,
seemed happy to be there and as she drew closer
I raised my arm, waving my hand in the universal
pantomime: “Hey! I'm over here”!

she spurted her way through the burning
mid afternoon crowd as if she'd been buttered,

her busy legs on the move beneath the strict,
flowering structure of crinoline, the inevitable
rhinestone-speckled sweater, breaking the rules

of commonplace with a sweltering performance.

the men palmed their cream-oiled haircuts as she passed,
they adjusted the waistbands and sucked their beer-bellies into them.
one guy walked into his wife knocking her to the ground
in front of the whizzing, screaming "Tilt-a-Whirl".

but outside the open-air Clambake Pavilion

where the sounds of spoons-full of clam chowder 
closed-in on two hundred slurping mouths,
my girl and me sat on a wooden bench
watching and listening to the people inside
and we did this for a long enough time before leaving
and we didn't even think of going in there.


 Lincoln Park, Westport, Mass. c.1959
                          

                          

-A plausible alternative to findings in the obit pages-

My childhood friend, Manuel Bento-Sousa

Was born on this day, as was Marcel Proust I see,

Whose literature I’ve not read a word, but––

Neither have I read the writings of Manuel Bento-Sousa.

I understand he might not have written things down

As he came across them, but of this I can't be certain.

My reasoning here is fundamental.
Simply because I haven't read Bento-Sousa
Doesn't mean he didn't write things down.

He might have been as attached to his father’s

Chevrolet as I was to my father’s Buick and
Kept a running account of his daily observations in verse
Secretly bundled in dresser drawers like Emily Dickinson.

I’d like to have read those poems.

Maybe his first true love was the girl upstairs 

For whom I had more than a passing fancy.

The first love of my life was reserved to my bike
Always willing and able,

Leaning on the wall in the entry, first floor, a kinship, we two

And I pray accounts of which are not now perceived as saccharine. 
I remember ––

In the junkyard with the rest of us ––

Bento, breaking away, busy with curiosity over the blue,

Sheet-metaled bubble of the bruised and battered Henry J Coupe

As we engaged in the postmortem of the long dead fat-cat's

1940s Cadillac Eldorado hood ornament, almost no rust, and I thought:
How foolish of Bento to ignore such a spoil as this.

Nothing I see on the obituary page about that.
It's an insult to both our sensibilities that singular enlightenments
Such as these are historically ignored by the column-writers
And our own aging populations.

Bento died before me, I'm now informed.

Says here, he was living in southern Ohio,
Not far from the Appalachian foothills where I once lived,

But not during the same six years.
A retired school teacher, it says.

I'd have never thought it possible of Bento.
He leaves me behind to speak of things no one else can,

Or has a mind to.

He leaves behind a wife, I'm here told in cold print;
Maybe the girl upstairs I’m now left alone to romance
And I’d like to have read that poem, too.

                                                  7/10