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THE
FINGER
Ten
Poems by Leonardo Dellarocca
Uncle
Frank said he knew the woman who carried her dead husband's
finger
in a jar. She carried it as she walked to the corner store
to buy Lucky
Strikes, carried it beneath an old kitchen towel to the
newsstand on
Mezzerole Street. Uncle Frank held up his left, then his
right hand,
indicating that it was the man's middle finger floating
in the dark
putrid liquid. He'd never seen her without it. Her last
days in Brooklyn
were when gunrunners and bootleggers hired blank trucks
to distribute
guns and booze. That's when she became that woman - always
with the red
kerchief and blackberry brandy on her breath. That summer
while sweeping
the sidewalk in front of her door she told Uncle Frank why
her husband
never gave in - he was a stubborn Calabrese. He owned the
small
vegetable store on Skoll Street not far from the Williamsburg
Bridge.
Weekends he drove the horse and carriage selling peppers
and zucchini
door to door and nobody was going to tell him to cough up
money for some
local gavone. Nobody. Fuck you, he told them, fuck you.
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