Contents
Esprit Home
Esprit Fall 2006 Home
Cover Photo
Awards
Contributors
Acknowledgements
Submission Information
a yellow wash overwhelms
Reclamation
Accidents
Seagull
Computer Dreams
Pete and Me
Traduction
Exasperations
Crack
The Budding Cubist
Motion
Untitled
A Doctrine of Recollection
The Lincoln Tunnel
Soft Spot for Strays
Zeugma
Here's Johnny
Fidelity Mates with a Deaf
Spouse
Capable of Being
Television Reality
Suicide
Reminiscing as Anti-Depressant
After Dinner at McDonald's
Untitled
The Speaker's Last Thoughts
Cityscape
– Scranton, PA
Front Cover:
Untitled
Inside Front Cover:
Venerable Space - C.S.
Lewis's Desk
Inside Back Cover:
Hugs and Kisses
Back
Cover:
Breakfast
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| | Soft Spot for Strays
Pauline Palko
We straddle a dead pine along the stream behind my
house, I and my sister of choice, my friend from life, my Sarah. I
am almost twenty-three; she is twenty. She took this picture on a
bright fall day with a tripod and timer.
I'm the brunette in
the purple sweatshirt and silver spoon ring. She's the blonde
wearing pearl earrings and jeans. Our manicures are fresh and
color coordinated; we grip each other's shoulders, lean in and
smile.
Already by then there was a lifetime of memories in
those smiles. She braked for frogs and picked the raisins out of
cinnamon rolls. She never used my first name. She had allergies. I
made her laugh just to listen to her snort. She believed the
promise in country songs: a good woman can tame the worst
of the bad, bad boys. She shied away from them except on the
basketball court. The first in her family with a college degree, she
had a soft spot for strays; her clothes were always covered with
dog hair.
Go Yankees!
Road Trip!
We paddled a canoe and sang
"Piano Man" while the
sky flashed with distant fireworks. Stolen beer in a Tupperware
pitcher washed down the bugs. She played the clarinet, hated
pain, never cried in public, did her hair twice a day, drank milk
with pizza, and put salt on everything.
All this and more, I see in that picture.
His name is David and I WILL NOT mention it again.
Shaved head, tattoos and scars.
Fired from the quarry.
drives Illegally.
drives Drunk.
drives Stoned—with his son in the car.
ADHD and bipolar,
that's what the prison social workers say.
"I have a disease. It's not my fault."
Nobody ever gives him a chance.
more drugs—prescribed and not.
Baby Natalie cries. She is wet and hungry and Sarah is
working nights.
debt, Debt, DEBT.
I found two dollars, we can buy milk!
Fired from the construction crew. "It's not my fault."
this song has a devil's promise.
bad back = couch + cable.
Sarah's working overtime.
The lawn tractor will get you to the store for cigarettes.
His mother adores her.
What's wrong with this picture?
They married in a courthouse ceremony. Her
grandmother's neighbor witnessed the event. She told her mother
afterward. Her mother told me and asked why. Her only
daughter. We were going to marry professional baseball players.
We'd travel, have security, and only have to put up with them for
six months of the year. And we'd be there for each other.
I saw Sarah once in the grocery store and she turned
away, pretending not to have seen me. Maybe I deserve that; I
made my feelings known in snide comments and refused to
hold a newborn that looked just like him. Sarah looked dirty,
exhausted, and old; all of the Sarah beaten out of her.
I'm happy, she said.
We no longer speak, but I send birthday cards signed
with love. In the meantime, I write stories about them just so I
can kill him at the end. I write his brains splattering bright red
on white walls and damn, if he
don't look surprised. And she
smiles, we smile, again.
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