My childhood friend Mildred Hayes bragged about her family’s homemade swamp coolers and the eleven newts living in their basement. Her mom had an old dollhouse with all the hazardous parts removed, wet down and primed for the newts, which loomed like shadowy angels. We sat at Mildred’s Formica kitchen table and ate a snack that was puffed corn painted with powdered cheese. I had never beheld anything so bright. I swore I could hear the newts shifting in their quarters as we ate, but it was probably swamp coolers issuing humidity, luxurious compared to my apartment’s dry bake. Mildred looked vaguely like Belinda Carlisle, but I was only jealous of her newts and the cool. Had always yearned for a small pet of my own. Sometimes songbirds in our neighborhood corner granny’s backyard would light on my open palm, but most days they flew past me on their way to the fountain. Corner granny sliced peeled cucumbers for my afternoon snack, a scattering of salt before stacking them on a plate with a faint blue design. I made the mistake of telling her about the newts and the powdered cheese. It’s uncertain which upset her more. She phoned an old friend (a retired nun) and obtained a specialized novena. I tried to recite the prayer along with corner granny, but the English translation made no sense and seemed like an apology for wearing a stranger’s trousers. I recalled enough of the prayer to whisper it to the newts the next day, holding my hands over the plastic dollhouse like some kind of enormous god.
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Mary Biddinger’s latest book is a novella-in-flash titled The Girl with the Black Lipstick (Black Lawrence Press). She is also co-editor of A Mollusk Without a Shell: Essays on Self-Care for Writers. Biddinger teaches creative writing at the University of Akron and serves as poetry editor at the University of Akron Press.