in memory of Manlio Rossi-Doria, 1905-1988, anti-fascist prisoner of Mussolini, agricultural economist, and senator
Manlio, welcome back, Bud,
your skull from the wall out to my elbow,
you were short, Bud, in dreamed quatrains,
I’ve missed you these three decades plus, Bud,
were you in Hell after all, along with my Mom, Bud, or struggling
through purgatorial fires smoking a short
Toscano, as you did with my Dad that year
we lived below you on Via Posillipo far across from Vesuvio in crazy Bella
Napoli?