Blow Fish

When Ginny, the youngest sister,
married Joe Lauro
I was the ring boy at their wedding
Or would have been
Had I not gotten sick
In the back of the Checker Cab
On the way to the church

Joe like to hunt
And had converted a closet
In their Brooklyn apartment
Into an arsenal

He showed it to me once.
It was floor to ceiling guns
And shelves of ammunition.

Later on, he gave it all up
In favor of bow hunting
Saying it required more skill

But before he did
He gave me the first and only gun
I ever owned -
A 22 caliber single shot Remington rifle
Which I used to shoot on Sundays
At an underground rifle range
Out on eastern end of the Island

Joe Lauro took me fishing once
In one of the Long Island bays
I think I was about twelve or thirteen
I had never been fishing before

I caught crazy stuff –
A sea robin, a blow fish and an eel
They scared the hell out of me
When I pulled them out of the water

But my Uncle knew how to handle them -
He cut up the sea robin
And eel for bait
But put the blow fish
In a bucket of water

Later that afternoon,
When we got back to the house,
He cut up the blow fish
And cooked it on the barbecue
Casually mentioning
That parts of them were poisonous
And if not cleaned properly
They could kill a man -

And then he laughed,
And said, “But so can Ginny’s” cooking.