-what’s next-

Requiem for Bobby Petrillo

Bobby Petrillo, second baseman
with better than average range

later to become a deep-sea diver

welding steel below the waterline out of Louisiana,

lived on Wall Street adjacent to Bedford Street

in the three block Italian neighborhood of Fall River, Massachusetts.

he died of cardiac arrest at the age of 55 or so

lounging topside on his Chris Craft 30 footer while

watching television, wired, docked and tethered in Miami.  

Wall Street ran perpendicular to Bedford Street,
from the brick and mortar facade of the Church
seated behind the left field fence to the north,

and Marzilli’s Bakery to the south.

this would be facing the third base line

as opposed to my house on Bedford Street

which faced the first base line.

when running, that would mean
from home plate to the west where Marzilli’s Bakery sat

scented in flour and sugar, to the first base bag to the east

toward "Whitey's" ESSO Station and "Club Marconi,"

the Italian neighborhood's beer and wine joint, squatting

just beyond the billboards for the old-timers, and younger upstarts

nabbing a few hours, or all-nighters, away from the house.

this has been a quick, lay-of-the-land.

but knowing what I've already reported, I could justify

stopping here in mid-verse, confident that the reader
would fill-in the blanks, call them interludes,

to continue this tragic opus of early neighborhood.

the reader must know by now of how

the Petrillo family up-and-moved to Tiverton, Rhode Island,

a low-slung, ranch-type beauty resting at the quiet road of trees

with generous grassy frontage in the early hours of morning

when old man Marzilli was unlocking the door to sweetness
and the fat DeCarlo twins began airing-out the stagnant,
late night's atmosphere of "Club Marconi".

my father, an affable glad-handed liquor salesman might have
already been on the road extending the measurement
of the first base line eastward toward the Cape and Islands, but 
it's getting late, I'm growing tired and–– well,

the souls of the faithful departed herein or assumed close enough
will have to fill-in the blanks for themselves, or

wait.