From Dirty Words: Selected Poems 1997–2016 by Carmine Starnino. Published by Gaspereau Press in 2020.
A snap-brim hat with a low, flat crown. It rides poor-postured on a head, but canting it dappishly across your brow brings a look of light-footedness to your walk. You cock it back for the brag and bluff of conversation, or dirty jokes with their not-in-front-of-the-children chuckles. Rain means you bring it to your eyes, head lowered as you dash for cover. Men who wear caps are men who talk weather. Mio cappeluccio, my father called his, and used his first, one summer dusk, to carry six yellow pears to woo my mother. It’s supple enough to be crumpled into a coat pocket, and lifted to your ear, it becomes the immigrant’s conch, the sea still broadcasting from it. When the old-timers nap, sitting, they hang it from a knee, a rim-mark in their hair. Awake, they rarely take it off, in love with how it forces a day into declension, so that everything slows down—so slow you have an opportunity to savour the moment now braking though your body as you pause, curbside, hands in pockets. Oh, and its surprisingly cool grip on a forehead when slipped on.