The Mandate of Heaven

Poetry. From TOMATO PIES, 25 CENTS: "[A]t my Grandmother's restaurant in Trenton New Jersey. My grandfather is rolling meatballs in the back. He studied to be a priest in Sicily but saved his sister Maggie from marrying a bad guy by coming to America. Uncle Joey is rolling dough and spooning sauce. Uncle Joey is always scrubbed clean, sobered up, in a white starched shirt, after cops delivered him home just hours before."