Sei

Looking back at it now

after a gaggle of decades

it’s a wonder that my

maternal grandfather

wasn’t bumped-off

by a fast moving vehicle

as he crossed Bedford Street

on his way to church, or

on his way to visit

the DeCarlo band of lunatics,

or on his way to the Marconi Club

to drink a glass of port wine with a rip

of Italian bread before going out back

to play bocci or especially to engage

in the frantic game of odds & evens. (called Morra)

in this case, a rapid-fire encounter of flashing

fingers while shouting out their exposed

numbers in the famed romance of the Italian tongue.

This was a stunning visual and aural event:

Two combatants face-to-face,

nearly no time elapsed between calls,––

no “one-two-three-shoot” bullshit as played by amateurs,

and at the end both players spinning away from the other

in a decisive retreat of the game.

there should be an opera dedicated to odds & evens

as it was played at the Marconi Club on Bedford, out back

at the bocci lanes behind the meadow just beyond the billboards.

It could well be that the reflexes required and honed in order

to stay in the game was the reason why my maternal grandfather

never got bumped-off crossing Bedford by oncoming traffic.

I recall that flashing and screaming the number "six"

was the most dramatic and memorable moment of the game,

the number called with the most searing of emotion:

“Seeeiiiiiiiii..!”

To this day, six stands alongside googolplex as my numbers of choice.