BOOMBOX SERENADE

JOEY NICOLETTI

BLAZEVOX[BOOKS]
Buffalo, New York
Boombox Serenade
by Joey Nicoletti
Copyright © 2019

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without

the publisher’s written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design, cover and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza

First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-347-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019939463

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Almost Lucky

My father believed that he would be rich

one day. He bought scratch-offs
and lottery tickets the way a real estate mogul
purchases land. A hundred dollars’ worth
most weeks, two or three hundred
from time to time. My mother tried
to reason with him. Sometimes
she yelled. My father kept buying lottery tickets.
One time he nearly hit the jackpot. He had five
of the six required numbers. The last one missed
by a single digit: 35 instead of 36. “Almost
lucky,” my father said. He won the consolation prize:
3,000 dollars. A week later, he pulled into the driveway
with a new used car: a Navy blue Mercury
Lynx hatchback. He asked my mother
what she thought of it. She rolled her eyes
and stomped into the house; the sun sliding
in a stonewashed pocket of clouds.

17
Motherfucking Jeopardy at the Gypsy Parlor

Hayburner on tap. Todd, the bar owner, turns up

the TV’s volume: It’s time

for Jeopardy. “Drink and play, Balls,”

he commands. All questions must be shouted

at the TV, as well as preceded

by the phrase, “What is motherfucking.”

Todd clears his throat, then demonstrates:

“What is motherfucking Donkey Punch?

What is motherfucking Enceladus?

What is motherfucking Hiram

Ulysses Grant?” A Daily Double. Tequila shots are on

the house, as long as the Jeopardy contestant bets all

of his or her money. Not tonight.

Todd shakes his head. The people seated at the bar boo

and hiss. The bartenders laugh as they mix

and pour drinks. Another Hayburner for me.

“That guy has no guts, Balls,” Todd bellows. “Absolutely no

motherfucking testicles.”

18
The Difference Between Prosciutto and Speck

is in the amount of flavor

provided by the fat,
as my friend Jeff tells me.
“That difference is everything,

like Pluto not being a planet anymore,

because it’s too small,
as opposed to Mars and the stars
out tonight. Let’s eat.”

We dig in. We chomp

our sumptuous feast
of these thin
slices of meat, salty,

glittering on wide,
vermilion plates,
beneath a round, candlelit
picnic table of sky.

19
Candy

When I saw an elephant, a female named Zurapa

at the city zoo last summer, I was struck
by the pained look in her eyes. I thought

of Candy, my family’s French poodle

when I was a child, on the night before
my father took her to be euthanized

without telling me. Her limp,

which she always had, became worse
despite all of the medication she took,

and was never harder for my father to see

than when she coughed up blood
after she ate a scoop of Spumoni ice cream.
David Bowie sang Ashes to Ashes on MTV.

Candy snored on my bedroom floor.

I read myself to sleep. Visions of Spider-Man crawled
on the walls of Brooklyn walk-ups
in my head. The next morning was

a pile of Milk Bone crumbs

in the middle of my bed. I looked for her
and called her name. My mother heard
the worry in my voice.

She told me to sit at the kitchen table,

then explained what happened.
Seeing Candy hurting made my parents hurt;

20
by taking her somewhere that would end her suffering;
everyone else’s would go away sooner,
which benefitted all who were concerned,

especially our furry queen, my mother said.

Then she held out her hand. That’s bullshit,
and you know it, I shouted.

I stomped into my room.

My pillows were punching bags.
The space beneath by bed was my bunker.
I stayed there and cried all day.

Looking back, as carried away as I was

by my sorrow and anger;
by imagining Candy trembling, wheezing
in a sterilized room, a needle in one of her legs;

the anguish my parents felt;

only now can I grasp the idea
that my mother’s pain was exacerbated
when I dismissed her kindness

and efforts to be gentle.

But isn’t that the nature of grieving?
No one goes about it the exact same way,
even if a heartache is shared,

and death is a kind of change;

people’s reactions to it are like fireworks,
ignite some, then watch the various colors
and patterns when they explode:

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a sodium gold willow;
a barium green ring on a finger of sky,
smoldering into a faint trail of smoke;

the flashing of cameras

as Zurapa steps into her house
at the zoo, the July sun’s hands
on my slouched shoulders.

22
Pie Auditions

Today’s candidate: Cinnamon Apple

Crumble, the third pie made from scratch
this week, and the last one this month

before my spouse and I decide

which will ones we will make
for our Thanksgiving dinner. By we

I mean that my spouse is

the baker. My jobs are to taste the pies
and bring her whatever she needs

to work her magic:

a bag of brown sugar;
a measuring cup;

a mixing bowl;
an occasional egg
or four, which she insists

I whisk, especially given my frustration

with my father,
after our phone conversation earlier today,

having called me
Maria, my mother’s name,
as has become his habit,

23
the fog of his medication, growing thicker
as the day progresses,
as the pie bakes. The Boston terrier

and Schnauzer lick my hands

before I clench them into fists,
turn off my phone, and forget

that I, too, will grow older, if I am lucky.

But for now, I can taste the crust, flaky
on my tongue. Me and my spouse,

our dogs and cat are all here

in the kitchen. We are together,
unlike my father and mother,

a spoonful of appreciation, poured

into the mixing bowl. My thoughts
bubble in egg whites. A bag of pecans

and a bottle of bourbon:

the DNA of the next pie on the counter,
my father’s eyes getting heavy

as he watches The Big Bang Theory at his home,

the whisk, freshly washed, drying off,
a sample of crumble, a hint of cinnamon

making me dizzy with bliss.

24
Recovery

Me? I feel like five pounds of nuclear

waste in a three pound bag. How about
you, son? my father asked me

when we spoke on the phone

a week after his surgery.
I said I was fine. I lied.

As unpleasant as my last checkup was,

waiting alone in a cold room
for an hour, it paled in comparison

to my outrage at the President

for separating families
at the US-Mexico border,

at detaining children
in cages. My father put me
on speakerphone. He spoke

of a satellite radar detecting water

on Mars. He said it was great
to be alive during a time

when such discoveries are possible,

that he wanted to see
humans colonize it,

25
with America leading the way
and being great again,
just like his health.

I coughed, just as I did

at my doctor’s command
during my checkup,

who then made idle chitchat

about the local Italian Festival,
which he pronounced

I-Tal-E-Anne.
I wanted to say
that hell is wallpapered

with his deleted selfies.

I wanted to say
that I-Tal-E is not

a country.
I wanted to say
that if bullshit was music,

he’d be the Boston Pops.

But instead, I coughed again,
because I have become more concerned

with being healthy than fighting,

and if I’ve learned anything,
it’s that I can’t

26
control how other people
behave, regardless of what I think
or why. Habits are maintained.

My father had
another call. My sister.
She was 5 minutes away

from his home. They would go

to the park, then take the first
of his three daily walks,

per his Doctor’s orders

for his recovery. He groaned.
Father, I grew up

listening to you laugh

at everything,
even if it wasn’t funny.
What’s the punchline here?

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