three early acquaintances and their circumstances

––the first acquaintance had semi-normal parents

and 3 cats, the cats of his mother's choosing, and

they lived in a hot and cold running water flat

on Quarry street, in the center of town.

they kept to their own business for the most part

enabling the neighborhood to move along in its natural

instincts without their lopsided suggestions.

––the second acquaintance had a cousin who slipped

on a caught mackerel and fell overboard on her father's skiff,

port-side (to hear him tell of it) as it was being rowed

on Narragansett Bay on a weekend fishing expedition.

she survived, being water-active, once earning neighborhood

praise for shallow rock diving at Cook Pond, located in the deep

south end section of town.

––the third acquaintance acquired a new infielder's glove

by questionable means, a 3-fingered "stiffy" from the sporting-

goods racks, and played the game better than most sand-lotters, 

backhanding grounders heading toward the gap between left and center.

––all this happened in Fall River, Massachusetts

during my early years across the street and due south

of the church which on Saturday mornings absolved me

of my recurring venial sins, and west of Chasidor Leo’s

variety store, where upon the counter by day, gummy candies

lay unwrapped in a bowl of transparent glass of which once-

upon-a-time any number of goldfish and their inevitable replacements

lived out their otherworldly existences without, to the best

of my knowledge, any stories to tell.