for this one

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

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

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

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 on Bedford Street across from

the backstop, we headed out to the billboards next to the inebriated

Marconi Club, and behind the middle of the three giant billboards, 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 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 of the acrid,

port wine-stinking Marconi Club which smelled like our grandfathers, and there,

LaCava and me, exposing our tongues behind the middle billboard hawking

Parliament cigarettes, with a young woman in a blue business suit, puffing

the way to upward mobility puffing, puffing away...