After the Boys Goaded Me and Ricky Irizarry into a Fist Fight

it all starting when Ricky hit my hatted head with a lit match,
one of many he was flinging just for fun as we exited
the Parish Hall after Thursday night basketball practice
for St. Teresa's eight grade team. He meant no harm, but everyone's
reaction, all the Damn, man, you gonna take thats they delivered

pressuring me at last to comment, "You gotta be more careful, man,"
which I punctuated with the slightest push on his chest. Silly Ricky
waited until I turned away before pushing back, just as gently, so
I had to push our problem further by facing
him as I again made contact.

After the third time he waited to push me in the back,
the boys phony indignation reaching each time further
for crescendo, Ricky made it impossible for us not to fight.
All our teammates, black, white and Puerto Rican, united
as they rarely were, in love with the way this game was unfolding

with more drama than any overtime, framed us into hitting
each other's faces, our winter gloves the only cover for
our bare fists, our lack of skill or style no stop to the joy
our pals procured, seeing their two back up centers contend
way harder than we ever managed on the court. I fought furious,

my rage making me immune to the hard hits I received,
caught up in all the things I hated, none of them named
Ricky Irizarry, so when they took us under the Parish Hall lights,
to judge who had delivered the better beating, I was declared
the winner, though, always a little smarter than poor Ricky,

I understood by how much I had lost.

Bonifacio Payaso

is the name I gave to the paper clown
my seven year old drew, colored
and cut out as one character
for an elaborate game she trusted
I would play with her.

She gave her cut–out characters fronts
and backs, suggested the protagonists
be the clown and a princess–ballerina
we gave my daughter's own name,
Margaret, with whom the clown
would of necessity fall in love.

I made–up for my multi–colored hero the silliest
name I could conjure, Bonifacio Payaso,
payaso the noun for clown in Spanish,
Bonifacio a name exotic to Margaret
and surely worth a chuckle from her
three much older siblings.

Still, as the game progressed,
the two of us acting out
the many characters created, the plaintive,
trusting way Princess Margaret would
say Bonifacio's name, he who had promised
to save her from the evil prince (involving magic
juggling balls, a force field and a lot of faith)

made me happy and hurt simultaneously:
glad to have a seven year old capable
of recognizing back to love even
the silliest sounding of my offerings;
sad she is seven so few moments more,
a dancer balleting inevitably towards
her later days with some other
largely unworthy clown.

After Seeing My Son Dance a Tarantella in Fairfield, Iowa

whose only Italian–Americans are east and west
coast transplants moved for the Meditation
Center at Mararishi U. Still, they reverence
their roots enough to take over the small town
square once a year for "All Things Italian,"

including semi-authentic renditions of lasagna
biscotti, cannoli, opera singers from Iowa City,
a zampogna player (that's an Italian bagpipe
if you're wondering), and me, who they import
from small town Missouri to deliver

my Diaspora stories and poems from years
back in Brooklyn and Queens. This time there's
also a folk–dancing troupe from Des Moines,
led by a woman who at almost 80 is still lively,
reminding me a lot of my just dead Aunt Louise.

This paisana, peasant costumed like the rest,
announces the selections and keeps time
on a tambourine, while young, Midwest–Italian–Americans
launch one folk dance after another, with more than one
tarantella, the one my relatives would recall throughout my childhood

at all their celebrations. When it was time
for audience participation, my sixteen year old son,
named for his grandfather, got up and literally
gave it a whirl, making me dizzy with thanks
at how gracefully he took to that old dance,

with no self-conscious concern of where any of us now were.