–August, 1963 / a love poem to Edwina Salsiccia-

In August of 1963 I gathered the things I’d need for art school;

pens, pencils, drawing pads, little bristle brushes I used in order to

add color to the numbers of an eventually pleasant scene.

I'll need rags from under the sink, lots of erasers, and

I'll take with me that photo of you, Edwina, the one where

you’re sitting by my side at the folding banquet table 

during the "installation of officers" at the Sons of Italy Hall

when my father was presented with a plaque honoring him

for being the Italian-American man of the year, and O,

how can I leave you now, Edwina, only to make

my pictures look a little better, or maybe to taste

marijuana for the first time, probably exhaling the smoke

as if I was puffing a Chesterfield, and perhaps someone

will tell me to keep the smoke inside my lungs, or maybe

to experiment with adult women who know where to go

and what to do, and no doubt to be lectured to of the goings on

of Elvis on velvet, or Maggie Keane's big-eyed kids, and maybe others

too good to be ignored, –– but I don’t know, and I don’t care.

Edwina, what I know is..I'll sorely miss the hypnotic appeal of your lazy eye

masking the blueness found in your good eye, the softness of your skin,

that river of skin above your blood-colored elbow running northward to

the little brown mole on your shoulder, (how its long black hair whispers

beneath my breath) and your drenched, exploring tongue rolling around

inside my arid mouth as if searching for something unknown, and yet desired;

a new kind of water. O, Edwina! the honeysuckle aroma of your knees, the smear

of your exhalation, as hot as the tailpipe exhaust of a souped-up '57 Chevy,

and the sweet softness of your horizontally uneven breasts

(and this is not meant to be vulgar) and only I know why one rested higher

than the other one, but that's the way of it sometimes, and it's ok.

I'm off to become historically significant and it's so long for now

and who knows, maybe forever my dear Edwina Salsiccia.