Not set on the set of Seinfeld’s first two seasons,
this scene was filmed beyond a live studio audience,
in a neighborhood in Queens, Brooklyn,
or one of the small ethnic enclaves
spread out in an archipelago around Manhattan

Open up on an old man making Hungarian
vodka ice cream, some kind of national delicacy
I just made up, advertised in red and green letters,
we pan to an old woman sitting
in a wheelchair on the sidewalk, she has red hair.

A youth asks her where he can sell spare books,
the library gave them away to him,
now he wants to make money off the charity,
laughter plays overhead, I guess this is some kind of joke,
now Elaine Benes appears to talk to her grandmother

I stop the action and call for cuts and breaks,
Elaine and the red-headed grandmother are in error,
she is not Hungarian, she is from Baltimore
and her surname is Benes, I decree she is Czech,
she hits me and tells me that this could be the maternal line.

Ben Nardolilli currently lives in New York City. His work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Red Fez, Danse Macabre, The 22 Magazine, Quail Bell Magazine, Elimae, The Northampton Review, Local Train Magazine, The Minetta Review, and Yes Poetry. He blogs at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com and is trying to publish a novel.