–1953 and there was a cop

walking the neighborhood beat from corner to corner then

back again, repeating the process through the course of his day.

I should have asked why he'd do such a thing at the time of discovery.

now it's too late.

1. 

the examinations before the investigations:

between corners there were two variety stores,

one gas station, one baseball park, a cranky junkyard,

three giant billboards, six barrooms and a hooker or two,––

three, if you count the blonde-wigged black who got pinched

five days after "Pinky" D'Ambrosio drowned at the ledge.

continuing between corners there were three sandwich shops,

two “Progressive Clubs": (one Portuguese, one Italian) both of which

were not so different one to the other save by language, two

authentic Italian bakeries, an empty lot once used to stable

four "parade" horses owned by fatso Tony Gasparini

criticized by many on festive parade routes of sub-standard "corking,"

the obligatory church, one memorable meadow, seventeen tenement houses,

one indelible tenement, and ten thousand sweltering echoes

amid a sea of women at their sewing machines running cloth.

me? ––well, I’m somewhere in the middle between “good for nothing”

and a delicious meatball sandwich at the Columbus Cafe.