Love Poem I

"Hey, Paisan, Luigi's the best
italian ice on the planet,"
I say to Shaughnessy over a draft
down on Arthur Avenue.

Herschel's here too, a CPA,
just like his mother told him to be
home from the park before eight,
nine pm in the summertime

hopes and dreams back in '83,
and bean pole bodies shooting hoop,
Herschel and me at five foot five,
Shaughnessy sprouting five foot nine

and puppy love for Abigail.
"Shame Abbie ain't like you, you Wop,
or a freckled Mick like me"
Shaughnessy said and his ears turned red.

Famine, progroms, and Anzio
boats that once didn't smell like fish
meant so very little then,
what with girls and algebra,

stickball on Sunday in the streets,
and yet we heard the fiddle play
before the diaspora pain,
Pagliacci and mandolins,

and tin whistle tunes in our brains,
grace before oatmeal for breakfast,
seder, and sneaking Guinea red
into Lorenzo's Restaurant

where once I turned to them and said
"I love you, yeah. I love you guys."

"Jesus, Mary, and Josephat!"
best damn Jew on the planet said,
who put my neck in a headlock
while Shaughnessy, that crazy Mick,
tickled my pasta filled belly such
I laughed so hard that I cried.