LONELINESS LIKE A WET PUPPY
A Christmas story
first published in The Iowa Source
photo:www.elegancebyamylee.com


Adrian Korpel

I came across her when reading the Personals ads in my local newspaper: "Mature Professional," DWF, 45, seeking "Christmas Romance and New Year's Love. Poets only."
   I hadn't had much luck meeting single women lately, so on a hunch I dialed the 900 number mentioned in the paper. An answering machine asked me to leave a message and mentioned a precise time for me to call a specific number. I recorded a description of myself, stressing the fact that I taught poetry at the university, and lying about my age.
  When calling later that night, I was connected to yet another answering machine. It said, in a pleasant woman's voice, "You sound okay professor, but you'd better pass my test for fake poets. Listen carefully: I want you to describe to me in a poem where you want to meet me and when. Make it romantic and sincere, I hate sappy stuff."
  I could hear her chuckle, and then she continued: " If I like what you write, I'll be there; if not, not. Don't use free verse, it turns me off. Leave the poem with Freshëns Frozen Yoghurt. Goodbye, professor." There was some some whirring, a click and then the usual buzz of a disconnected phone.
  Free verse was all I ever bothered with. There was no way I could come up with sonnets or odes. I thought about that for a while and finally decided on a sensitive prose poem foretelling where and when I was going to meet her.This is what I wrote:


It is midnight on Christmas eve. I walk slowly through the silent streets of the city. Snow has been falling since late afternoon; the gray day has faded into shadows, and the miniature lights in the small, bare trees are boring bright rings in the pearly dusk of winter. By now the snow is inches deep; it covers the red bricks of the mall and forms glittering, white caps on the orange fire hydrants and the gleaming, steel spouts of the fountain. The voices of summer still hang in the air, and from a long distance away I seem to hear sounds of running water and children's cries of excitement. 


Past the fountain stands a Christmas tree, decorated with shiny, red balls. A half dozen newspaper boxes are lined up facing the tree, as if they have come caroling . After wiping the snow off a bench, I sit down near the Hallmark store where tessellated, paper snowmen stare at me through the dark display window. Everything is still. As the snow floats quietly down, I am waiting for you, cradling my loneliness like a wet puppy. 


   It wasn't the greatest poem I had ever written, but it did have an undertone of pensive melancholy. And " cradling my loneliness like a wet puppy" was a master stroke, I thought. I dropped the epistle off at Frëshens Yoghurt and hoped for the best.
  For the next two weeks nothing happened. Mature Professional did not try to communicate; at least I didn't find any messages in the paper to give me a clue as to how my poem had been received. Not that I minded all that much; the semester was over, and I finally had a chance to catch up on my reading.
  I had almost given up on the whole idea of poetic romance, when Christmas Eve came around, and reminded me of my appointment. I was pretty sure that Mature Professional wouldn't show up, but I decided to walk downtown anyway, if only to prove to myself that I was a romantic old fool. It was snowing heavily, and I made slow progress, but around midnight I arrived at the bench near the Hallmark store mentioned in my prose poem. There was nobody else around, and against my better judgment, I sat down and waited.
  After about fifteen minutes, just as I was about to leave, a tall woman in a long, green, hooded coat and black boots appeared out of the steadily falling snow. She picked her way slowly and carefully across the street toward my bench. When she came closer, I noticed that she had long, auburn hair. It tumbled out of the hood of her green coat, and shone like copper in the light of the street lamps. The inside of her hood was blue, and framed her oval face like an Italian renaissance painting. She stopped, looked at me quizzically, and said with a smile,
  "Cradling your loneliness like a wet puppy?"
  I looked at her face, at how she drew up the corners of her gray eyes in mock puzzlement.
  "Yes, that's my puppy all right," I said, "Are you by any chance a veterinarian?"
  "I may be," she said, "what's the matter with the puppy?"
  "It's lonely, " I said, "I think it needs hugging."
She looked at me with an ironic smile. Then she wiped the snow from the bench with her glove, and sat down next to me.
  "I always wanted to be a veterinarian," she said," do you think it's too late to start now?"
  "I think you should," I said, "I hear it's a great profession. In fact, I may try it myself. Maybe you have a sick puppy, too."
  For a while we just sat there in silence, watching the falling snow. At last she touched my hand and smiled at me.
  " Perhaps we should see about signing up then," she said.