Contents
Esprit Home
Esprit 2004 Home
Cover Photo
Awards
Contributors
Acknowledgements
Submission Information
Because I Love the
Woodchopper's Ball:
A Blues Sonnet
Scream it and Scram:
A Blues Sonnet
Wrinkles
Comfort
Seas and These
Seasonal Affective Disorder
Word in Words
Adam
A Lilliputian Script
31/2 Parrots
Jihad
Sparkles
Occlusion
Mother's Cradle
Me against the Music
Arash
Sex Appeal
The Poet's Brother and the
Language of Asperger's
Trinity
Together
Einstein's Afterlife Postcard
m=E/c2
Our Skin
Poetry
Front Cover:
Central Park
Inside Front Cover:
Suicide
Inside Back Cover:
Peace
Back Cover:
Samsara
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| | A Lilliputian Script
Rebecca Martin
About a half mile walk from our house is the Mueso Coffee House. The parking lot, which usually boasts a sandy, soil bottom, now resembles a giant lake. Nevertheless, the up-town tourists are out, splashing their
shiny SUVs and darting into the shop beneath their brightly colored, monogrammed umbrellas in an attempt to keep their expensive sundresses dry. Filthy and wet, I walk through the heavy wooden door just before the clouds open up again.
'Two
lattés with skim milk to take away, please,' I tell the woman behind the counter. Quickly bustling about, the woman has me ready to walk out the door within two minutes. I prolong my return to the rain by veering into the coffee house's adjacent gift shop/bookstore. Looking past the shelves laden with books detailing the island's colorful
history—Black Beard the pirate vacationed here, too—my eye falls upon the jewelry case beneath the front counter. Peering through the glass, my hair drips. Through the splash of water, my eyes fall upon a simple necklace. At two hundred ninety-eight dollars, the "Free Spirit Necklace" is the most expensive item in the case. A little card
beside it details; Jeanine Payer combs through libraries in search of eloquent quotations, then hand engraves them on gleaming sterling. Each piece is a work of art set in Lilliputian script and laden with both beauty and meaning. I look to the necklace—a rectangle freely attached to silver links—which bears the inscription, "Out
beyond ideas of wrongdoing an rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there."
A woman in a Burberry sundress edges in next to me; her large arms with their soft flesh meet my own damp flesh. I mumble 'excuse me; and drift further down the
glass jewelry case. "Honey!" she yells to another equally large woman across the room; "Come over here and look at this necklace, it's got poetry written on it." Turning, the other woman nods her head; her crown of bright red hair remains inert as she slowly saunters over.
"Oh, but it's just so plain, Cynthia. If you want my advice, buy her something gold and glittery. You cannot go wrong buying something glittery for a little girl."
"It drew my eye, I don't know why. Maybe it is a boy necklace."
I pick up a book about island erosion due to higher tides.
"It looks so artistic," she continues grandly.
The redhead responds, "But boys don't
wear necklaces, do they? I've only ever seen boys wearing crosses. Besides, it's got poetry written on it; what boy do you know who likes poetry?"
They look at each other and laugh.
"But she might like it if I tell her the writing is named after those small, orange people in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory."
I duck out the door.
¶ ¶ ¶
Splashing through the puddles, I eventually forget the way my soaked sandals feel slippery and slimy beneath my toes. Pools of murky, sandy water gather in the gutters which, though inadequate for so much rain,
continue their struggle to pull water from the roadways. Andrew and I have rented the same house on Mueso Island for the past five summers. Two-storied, grey and clapboard, the house is much too large for just him and me. But we love the wrap-around screened porch and the way there are always potted plants in the flowerpots. Each night we
sleep in a different bedroom; with the sailboat-emblazoned comforters kicked to the bottom of the bed we are kept cool by the beating, paddled ceiling fans.
¶ ¶ ¶
Brushing the bottoms of my shoes across the large welcome mat, I pause to listen for Andrew's footsteps in the house. Except for a single light in the kitchen, the house looms dark and quiet in the twilight.
"Andrew!" I call as I stumble over a pair of sandals clumsily tossed by the doorway earlier in the day. "Can't you even turn on one light so I don't kill myself on my way through the door?"
"Electricity attracts lightning, Kathki."
"I hate that nickname and you know it," I respond. It's not nice that you give me the same one that your grandfather gave to your grandmother."
"Kathki is a sweet name."
"For a girl."
¶ ¶ ¶
Later, Andrew's fingers softly trace the curve of my shoulder blade—first one and then the other. He laughs quietly when I tell him about the two women in the shop; "Well have to go there tomorrow and I'll try on that
necklace—we'll see if it's made for a man."
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