Sheila Paroles

We stopped to do firecrackers on the dunes.

And late at night we snuck upstairs to her room, and commenced Transmissions from the

Satellite Heart on the stereo and begged for our lives to start.

But they never did.

Not the way we thought.

Not the way we begged for, the way we prayed for.



And then, at her brother's graduation, we all gathered ‘round for a snack by the

punchbowl, and her teacher was in line.


And Sheila read a page from her manuscript, and sold it to a publishing house that was

there in the back row.

And Sheila turned to me with a tear in her eye, and money rolling off of her cheek,

and said “I've gotta go, nmy son.”

I said, “You're not the only one.”

But I loved her.