A SICILIAN IN POTTER’S FIELD

Uncle Nino lived incognito
in Corona for three decades.
The family says they don't know why.
 
A non-com in the Italian Army,
he followed Mussolini to Africa
for land and glory.
Maybe his spirit broke in Egypt
after five years in a British P.O.W. camp.
 
Maybe it was the bitter pill of work.
The only son, he was due
to run the family dry goods store
but his mother gave out too much credit
before the war ended
and the store went belly up.
 
Maybe it was a letdown in love.
His true blue was a baronessa
who was wild about him
but not so wild to buck her family
who made her marry
someone from her social class.
 
Maybe it was his brother-in-law
whom he lived with after he emigrated
from Sicily to New York
who bullied him like a child
and opened a letter from the baronessa
sending him fleeing from the Bronx .
 
But the family protests:
we tried to stay in touch.
 
He wouldn't give us his address
and when someone gave us
his telephone number
he wouldn't talk to us.