Five women belonging to my father by Indigo Tempestai
He was cute, he was like
Sinatra
or maybe I just thought he was but all the girls thought so too and whaddya know I hooked him
and then he went Over There
and when he came back well things was just
different
Yeah so now Im living in Rio thats Brazil just a little modeling job here and there I heard he keeps my picture on the
dining room wall
in a frame
ii
1944
this is not the sort of thing one just talks about
1944, he was an American, an Italian also.
Marco, my brother, he liked him.
He gave Marco coins and sweets.
He was less than two meters. Marco followed
him all over the city.
Ciao bella, he said. He spoke terrible Italian.
Once they came here, to me, to our flat with the blast-hole in the wall.
I had such dark hair on my head then, and almost none anywhere else. My hips had not cradled the bodies of five tiny children.
Marco says this, outside the door: la mia sorella è molto bella, signore.
When he left he gave Marco four dollars American.
This is not something we talk about. My husband does not know. The priest does not know. Only Marco knows.
And he he was the only American paisano I ever saw.
iii
I left the city when I couldnt take it anymore.
When the kids were old enough, I took them and went South.
My brothers put us up until he finally came.
We opened a salon and he worked for the post office.
We had a nice house.
He wrinkled in the sultry southern air.
He shrunk.
He and our son dont talk anymore.
He and I dont talk anymore.
But he told our daughter once that he should never have left me.
Its okay my brothers took all his furniture.
iv
Can you believe it? I was dating the mailman.
v
i lived with my sister
autumn 1982 i laughed at her
kissing the mailman [he was ancient we were coeds]
we were married twice first in the courthouse
second by my father and the baptists his family died hating me
we had two boys and a girl and my sister laughed at me
kissing the mailman having the mailmans children
good one real original
my daughter looks just like me we both have straw hair we look like sisters
nothing like him
thats not in the joke
its not very funny that he is seventy-eight while am thirty-eight
that i have since remarried that i sent my daughter to college last year that the garden in front of the house is full of color these days that i have worked hard and here i am
that he is still a mailman that he tells me he doesnt sleep anymore or that hes waiting on heart attack number four
the joke is he keeps living and i have grown old04/21/2004 Posted on 04/21/2004 Copyright © 2025 Indigo Tempesta
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