the answer man

due to infuriating demands for explanations regarding the source

material of my poems from the obnoxious Giuseppe Gnocchi,

whose house (a neighborhood eyesore) needs re-shingling,

I’ve decided upon a reply primarily to get him off my back.

–– dear Giuseppe, remember that time when you were pumping

at the Esso station across the street from my house, and a tanker truck

filled with leaded high test gasoline rumbled-up behind you, and scared

the fuckin’ crap out of you, causing you to fumble the hose which

saturated your pants with cheap, 35 cents a gallon regular, and your mother,

(an extraordinary washwoman) could never get the smell out of them,

but you wore them just about every day to just about everywhere anyway?

well, it may have taken me some 60 years, but that’s a poem right there.–– see?