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      June 27, 2019The OptimistEmily Sperber

      Image: “Desert Road” by Ellen McCarthy. “The Optimist” was written by Emily Sperber for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, May 2019, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.
      He tried to make it better
      by saying at least this
      was the good kind of desert,
      not the bad kind and I did not
      bother asking him the difference.
       
      He tried to make it better
      by saying that at least I,
      his wife, didn’t have to
      give the long haul trucker
      a handjob for a ride to the
      towing company we didn’t
      even know would be there
      and I didn’t want to bring up the
      fact that we were still walking
      and the long haul trucker was
      already down the road.
       
      He tried to make it better
      by saying that the clouds
      looked like cotton candy—
      blue & pink puffs close
      enough for the taking—
      so, in his youth, he obviously
      didn’t take fistfuls of the sugar
      in his mouth only to throw
      up in the carnival’s trash
      can, those blue & pink puffs
      not so puffy at the bottom
      of the garbage and while
      I made this distinction
      apparent to him, he rolled
      his eyes and twisted his
      feet, in one fluid motion,
      in the direction of, hopefully,
      a gas station because, he said,
      like a ringing bell in our
      marriage, he was only
      trying to make it better.

      from Ekphrastic Challenge

      Comment from the editor, Timothy Green

      “I just loved how vividly these two characters jumped out of the image and into life. It’s the precision of the details that work this magic—the carnival trash can, his full-body eye-roll. I also love that I can’t decide who to side with—neither of them, I suppose. Somehow I think they’ll make it out, though.”

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