Saturday Poetry (on Sunday): Don't Go to Bed With Frank

from Turn Left at the Dead Dog:  there was (at this point 20 years on, I'm sure "was" is the correct tense) a Bernie Marinello.  One of those old school Italian-American Brooklyn geniuses.  A poem like this is an elegy for postwar Brooklyn, a world long gone except for men like him.

Bernie Marinello

was discharged from the Air Force

in 1946 and came home to Brooklyn.

Met his two children, both born

before he could remember why

he married their mother.

Leaving, out of the question.

Bernie was a good guy

and did what he could.

And now, white-haired old man

he’s in love.

We work together in the big room that

used to hold enough desks for burly men

who never sat down.

There was much to do back then

but the Shipyard is dying

and now it’s us three:

Bernie, Frank, me.

We work in silence.

Bernie looks up

after Frank leaves for the day.

Honey, Frank’s not very good in bed.

I look up after saving my file.

Don’t worry, Bernie,

I don’t plan to find out.