for Rita LaCava in paradise and the meadow behind the billboard

I haven’t written much about Rita LaCava, if at all.

I have one instance to remember her by, but an important instance.

as grade-schoolers we were young enough to see through the normalcy

of our elders into the abnormal activities our ages demanded of us.

so, when we gathered enough funds to purchase two strands of black

licorice at Chasidor Leo’s Variety we headed to the craggy meadow

behind the landlocked billboard next to the inebriated Marconi Club where

we chewed and sloshed the licorice strands around in our mouths rotated

by our slurping tongues, then giving our tongues the once-over, sticking them

out as far as our early jaws would allow to see across the thick, dark landscapes

the licorice had made, and we closed-in on ourselves, zeroing-in on each other’s

tongues piercing the atmosphere and there, LaCava and me in the meadow

behind the billboard hawking Parliament cigarettes, where a young woman,

dressed in a powder blue business suit is puffing her way toward upward mobility.