It was another one of your ideas
to install the speakers
throughout the outside deck

as if hearing it blasted inside
every sunday
loud enough
to make my insides

thump

was somehow incomplete

and how sweet it is
that once again
you were right...


as the endless nights
of missing
Luck be a Lady
chased with a glass of two buck chuck
followed with parental humorous intent
that often went down harder
than
the hot
proscuitto stuffed cherry pepper

God how our neighbors must have thought you were just some insane Italian immigrant

until they made the time
to sit down with you and Frank
share some antipasto and wine
and discuss
what's really important in life






*for my father*