Dino

Dino is dying.
“Tragic last days!” say the tabloids,
and when the tabloids speak of death
they always speak the truth.

Dino Martini, we called him when we were kids,
as if even at ten we understood that he was a soldier of booze,
the point-man of the highball generation.

Dino is dying,
bladder’s bad,
eyes’re bad,
kidneys failing,
prolapsed here,
fused over there.