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Chief Mullica, licensed detective,
Can be found, when he chooses,
At 577-S, The Orpheum Building,
Jersey City, where it is always
October 1940. He is willing to train,
To investigate, to fingerprint,
To shadow and to solve
Cases which have baffled
More ordinary detectives.
That he works out of a building
Torn down 60 years ago
Is not a problem. 

For $15 a day and expenses,
He’ll  travel almost anywhere.
Particulars, say his ad, are free.

DETECTIVE MAX

He was named Mordechai but came to America
Where he turned into Max. His wife called him Mortrazik
And his children, the ninth of whom was my father,
Called him Poppa. I cannot call up his true ghost
Since before we met age and Parkinson's
Locked his words away and set his hand trembling.
Thus, I turn to my father's ghost who says his father
Was tall and very strong and overflowed with merriment
(Try bring merry with 9 children. Just try.)
He called my father Sock because that was his first word
And how should a baby not know his own name?
Sock believed Max was a detective. Chasing crooks?
No problem; Max had the ability to jump over a garage.
(Max had a sense of proportion; he never claimed
He could leap over a house.) Sock knew his father
Was a tailor, but where is it written that a tailor
Can't also fight crime? I like to think of my father
Watching his father gracefully jumping

Over the surprised garages of Brooklyn.