Reciprocities

Over the last three years
My father has taken up cooking and
Conversing in his retirement
When my brothers and I were kids
He never as much as boiled water
Now when I call him he insists on giving me
His recipes for chili and veal and soups
He stays on the phone for a long time now
Asking questions, offering anecdotes about baseball and cars
Talking about his life
He never did much of that until he retired
Moved away and I turned forty
He is never anxious to hang up the phone
Seemingly making up for lost time as
He approaches seventy
Back when I was still in my late twenties
He in his early fifties
We stood side by side in Adonizio’s Funeral Home
His father, my grandfather, lying in the coffin before us
My father pointed toward the box and said,
“There is your role model, not me”
Now I have lived half of my life and wonder
Will I remember my father’s recipes when he is gone and
Will my son point to my lifeless body one day
A son of his own by his side

What People Are Saying:

“Lou Orfanella is at it again, zinging us down dozens of new mind rides on his patented Poem-Coaster. Radical juxtaposition is afoot this time around. Slumbering birth memories are resurrected and given impossible life. The Pope celebrates mass at Yankee Stadium while links to the Holocaust await discovery further down the existence road. Comedy clubs and exotic dancers fuel wine-red blushes. Indoor hide and seek and emergency hospital visits induce squirms. View-Masters are dusted off, peered through and put back on the shelf. Who needs them, anyway, when we have View-Master Orfanella’s word prisms to peruse? Stop reading the back of this book, turn to page one and start trippin’!”
          – Oscar De Los Santos, author of Arroyo Negro and editor of Reel Rebels

“Lou Orfanella’s poems tumble into the mind with a foaming wave of images that memorialize his generation.”
          – J.P. Briggs, author of Trickster Tales

“Orfanella’s poems combine strong, vivid imagery with a genuine human strength. He has a special gift that borders on the miraculous, i.e. the ability to resurrect the past (people and all), to make it come alive and speak to us, touch our spirit, and enrich our present lives.”
          – James R. Scrimgeour, author of Balloons Over Stockholm and We Are What We Have Loved