WHAT DID CONCETTA KNOW?
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“Can you imagine that color on me?”
“I would ask her not to do that.”
“Is she older or younger?”
“Is that before or after?”
“Older.”
“Give me that. Just before.”
“Before?”
“Yes. No. Well, just when.”
“That’s Anna and Nick’s place, right? The one on Fourth Street?”
“Well, that’s the couch, anyway.”
“She took the couch?”
“He burned all the rest.”
“But that wasn’t nothing with Connie, though.”
“No, that was all Anna.”
“But why is she there?”
“I remember that couch.”
“She’s 32 but her legs are 22.”
“She always knew better.”
“It’s all on Anna, I say.”
“You would say that.”
“Sister or no, all on Anna.”
“That bag!”
“It was spring.”
“That bag.”
“1966.”
“Never.”
“1963.”
“That’s the bag.”
“What bag?”
“1960. Yes.”
“The bag with the, with the…”
“Look at those brows.”
“That’s the bag?”
“How did she get away with it?”
“She had help…”
“How’d she do it?”
“The Grey Hand.”
“He’s the one!”
“The one with the car, that car.”
“The Cadillac. With the fins.”
“Grey Hand?”
“He talked her into it.”
“It was a big car, but ugly.”
“Never.”
“What’s a Grey Hand?”
“He was connected, hooked up, like.”
“The Teamsters?”
“No. Yes, and they were hooked up too.”
“Somebody explain.”
“The Grey Hand, he handled everything, right down to the last…”
“You don’t need to – I don’t want to hear that story again.”
“He was a guy who knew someone who knew someone. So he was just, like, grey.”
“And he started it?”
“Yes. No, it was her idea and he just…”
“He helped her.”
“What about Anna?”
“That was a whole different thing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, Anna’s thing was different.”
“I don’t think so.”
“So maybe that’s not the couch?”
“It looks like the couch.”
“It’s a couch. There are thousands of couches. What does it matter?”
“There are two stories.”
“One for Concetta and one for Anna.”
“And that’s Connie?”
“Of course. Those shoes.”
“The Newports. God, I want a cigarette.”
“And she already knew.”
“Of course she knew. Look at her.”
“Look at her.”
“Look at her.”
“She was happy after that.”
“Look at her.”
“Yeah, yeah. I suppose.”
“I’ll never get over it.”
“Those were the days.”
“She was the first.”
“She was the first.”
“She was the first.”
Matt Cariello’s most recent book, The Empty Field, was published in 2022 by Red Moon Press. His first two collections of poems, A Boat That Can Carry Two (winner of the 2010 Bordighera Poetry Prize) and Talk (winner of the 2018 Lauria/Frasca Prize) were published by Bordighera Press. He’s had stories, poems, haiku, and reviews published in Bennington Review, Voices in Italian Americana, Poet Lore, Ovunque Siamo, Evening Street Review, Modern Haiku, Frogpond, The Heron’s Nest, The Long Story, Indiana Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Italian Americana, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, Typehouse, Sheila-Na-Gig and The Journal. He’s currently a senior lecturer in the English department at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.
OVUNQUE SIAMO 