tomato and mozzarella cheese
pepperoni slices and anchovies
melted together
and baked
on a huge spun disk
of bread dough
use to be pizza pie

on Fridays
in Toronto after work
in 1961 before we married
Rose and Dennis and Flora and I
would drive down Palmerston Ave
to Toto’s Pizzeria
on Queen Street
run into the beer store
drive back
wolf down everything
and fall asleep
in front of the little
gray and white
TV test pattern
and Rose or Flora would
wake us up before dawn
so Dennis or I would
drive the girls home
because
their mothers would die
or kill them
if they stayed all night.

Last night
I wolfed my way through
two and a half slices
of medium-all-dressed-thin-crust
from Jenna’s on the corner
they know me there
and I get a discount for
walking over to pick it up
Flora and I don’t have to say no anchovies
and we don’t fall asleep right after
and I don’t have to drive Flora home
before dawn
partly because her mother
hasn’t sent any lightning bolts
from her retirement home in the sky
and partly because
sleeping over is pleasantly legal
for couples who have been
married for almost fifty years.