V is for Vulcan, Vincenz and Vesuvius
My old man praised himself for not being
like his own Pa, Old Pa, but striking out
to the furthest shores from his home:
a mildly coniferous alpine village sautéed
in pristine sunlight and chanterelle mushrooms,
where the jangle of the cowbells foretell
snowstorms, and the ghosts of Huns and Romans
walk the forest in the bewitching hours.
At the age of nineteen, he made off to the city
and sold exclusive ladies’ shoes door to door.
He would barrel down the slick cobbled alleys
of Zürich’s Altstadt, suitcase of slip-ons in each hand,
stopping off at the Schweizerhof for a cool,
frothy brew and Bratwurst with a roll and spicy mustard,
before hitting the Bahnhofstrasse in a mildly-inebriated
vim and a more mature, youthful vigor.
His first client that day was a Mistress Nicolette Chantalle,
the bedazzling owner of La Grande Boutique Bijou,
who fussed over his Steve McQueen hairdo
and that Marilyn mole on the edge of his lip.
She purchased twenty pairs of the Musicienne Toscano,
a stiletto built like a tap shoe that snapped
as you trod the sidewalks. The champagne cream pair
had often featured at weddings and funerals
that previous season; this new model, however,
also possessed a Venetian buckle
made of gilded blue, blown glass from
the enchanted island of Murano.
Mistress Nicolette Chantalle invited Pa
to join her in a snifter of Armagnac and an amuse-
bouche with pickles of saucisson sec. One thing
led to another—eventually in the Liederstube,
over Crystal Brut, they danced: he, sniffing
her equine neck, she, wandering over
his long elephantine earlobes
with the tip of her delicate ivory nose.
At three o’clock in the morning, he’d slipped off
her negligee and she arched back like a panther in heat.
In that moment, between confessions
and further libations, Pa’s own Pa, Old Pa,
appeared in the doorway, his black hair glimmering
in the moonlight from all the Brylcreem.
(I’ve been told Pa was licking Mistress Nicolette Chantalle’s
engorged nipple and her left leg was raised
with her Mexican-pink toenails pointing toward
the Sistine-chapel-shaped ceiling.)
Old Pa lifts the studio couch above his head
(they said he could bench-press five fully-
grown men on an old oak door), and tosses it
in the direction of the unsuspecting couple coupling.
From that day, my old man swore
he would only ever sell industrial: factories, conglomerates,
cooperatives, wily companies feasting on the fringes—
all run by men, vulcanized in their steadfast tread.
He held his couch-scar in high esteem,
and fondly recalled Mistress Nicolette Chantalle
his entire lifespan, until, indeed, at the end,
he announced his undying love for her—
she, a married woman with seven children,
who, had not my mother been, would have been
his femme fatale until the end of time;
and yet, when she, Mistress Nicolette Chantalle
herself died, that bruise on her eyelid never
quite fully healed, she called out his name:
Vincenz!! she wailed, wrapping herself
in her finest Egyptian linens:
Let us resurrect together and vulcanize
in the winds of time like Pompeii!
On an Amtrak to Philadelphia
with Orson Welles
Across in the first-class cabin,
in the blue light of morning,
a woman with the steel-gray eyes
levels you, she who bears her canines
and smokes filterless Gauloises
with an ebony holder,
twisting the darkness
with her long violet nails.
Who wants to be a tax exile,
says she, reaching for her purse,
and leans over the bearded fat man
to pay for your coffee.
