Requiem for "Bunny" Giambastino 

––it seems like yesterday that pal Hank Casper at the Esso station

oiled and lubed my cousin Paul Pieroni's heavy rolling Oldsmobile,

and together we hit out for the Massachusetts coast at Provincetown, curious

to witness the gathering harbor seals galumphing toward shore at Herring Cove Beach.

Pieroni's well worn copy of "Wink" magazine was laying on the backseat

looking real good so I reached over nabbing it for a look-see, astonished to find

that the covergirl closely resembled an enticing neighborhood beauty,

two years my elder, and hot from "Jesus and Mary Academy" a proving ground

for Catholic schoolgirls searching for a truer meaning of romance. 

––on the benchseat to the right of the Oldsmobile's massive steering wheel,

while thumbing through the pages of "Wink", I ate a pre-spread creamy peanut butter

and seedless raspberry jam sandwich pulled from a brown paper bag my mother

had carefully folded from a previous school lunch as the great white sharks off the coast

began feasting on succulent harbor seal meat and I witnessed the carnage through

the agitation of the North Atlantic feeding frenzy, while fantasizing over what it might be

the incomparable “Bunny” Giambastino was having for lunch.