LOBSTER WITH OL’ DIRTY BASTARD

The broken down fishing boats on the docks rock back and forth
as if there is music in the air. Norma Jean, Captain’s Girl, Jenny,
    all hips and
bounce – shimmy shimmy ya in their slips.  Across the street,
    Randazzo’s Clam Bar,
“the pride of Sheepshead Bay,” bustles. Inside, not fisherman nor
    pirate, but rapper
Ol’ Dirty Bastard has his own seat, where he reigns with sunglasses
    and a vinyl bib.
Dirty likes it raw, so raw he fathered 13 children, and when he
    rolls up to Randazzo’s,
in his black school bus with 24-inch rims, his clan of offspring
    pour out like bass.
Mama Randazzo sighs and smiles that forced diagonal smile,
    as she drags 6 tables together
There are platters of mussels and little necks with mouths
    wide open!
Dinner rolls bounce off the walls like handballs!  Sword fights
    break out with shrimp
skewers, the toddlers wear calamari rings on their fingers like
    diamonds, and lil’ Rusty
does the fake-sneeze-trick that leaves an oyster in his open
    palm.  Ol’ Dirty is ravishing
a huge boiled lobster, drawn butter dripping down his
    chin, as he cracks open the claws
with his golden fangs.

-- Michael Cirelli

Submitted by Virginia Watkins, Director of the Center for Writing and Critical Thinking
"I love the image of the black school bus, the children pouring out of it, "like bass." The fishing boats, the food, the clamor that IS RAndazzo's Clam Bar. This poem is alive, and I love that."