Genova Meat Market, circa 1935
A photograph by Theresa Mitchell
In 1935, the act of the opera in this case,
remains undetermined, as is the day of the week.
Absent-minded, or with attentions diverted,
one could fall into the portal on the sidewalk
with two metal doors open, where meats
are delivered to the basement of Genova Meat Market.
Hanging in the window is a plucked chicken,
links of sausage, a bare-naked rabbit,
half a carcass of pork lacking its head
and facing the storefront window.
Two piglets summarily killed, and hung like Mussolini,
upside-down by their hind-legs.
The canvas awning over the front-window
has yet to be cranked down, protecting unrefrigerated meat,
sprigs of parsley festooning the corners,
a fresh and wholesome look in the morning sunlight.
There's a poster hung in the window
for the Rossini Opera Company, advertising Rigoletto
at the Pompeii Auditorium, on Sunday, December 13,
featuring four performers and their portraits,
one a square-headed fellow wearing a feathered boa;
another with a cape striking a Caravaggio pose,
like The Denial of Saint Peter.
The third singer could be the Italian grandfather
turning back to look with an eye that asks why?
And the two others; bloated, over-wrought singers,
men in love with music.
A woman who patronizes the Genova Meat Market
on Tuesday mornings, her hair in a net,
stockings rolled--lives across the street
seven doors down--believes in sorrow, loneliness
and the opera on the radio on Sundays,
an Italian butcher shop in New York,
opera of dark-haired players,
Mustaches and sideburns, white starched aprons
and rolls of butcher paper.
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