Antithesis, or Deliverer

of Darkness

by Pete Mladinic

Epitome of good and evil: the man and

woman took her into their home, and there

gave her a bed in a room, a table to sit at,

food and drink, a TV to watch, windows

to look out at trees in rural South Carolina,

took her in, so she didn’t have to sleep

against a brick wall, or under a trestle

or on a cot in a room cramped with cots,

took her in in exchange for taking plates

from a cupboard, setting the table,

her dusting, vacuuming, washing, drying

a help, as they to her, a great help, a roof

and walls, and trees in leaf in summer

off a front porch, till the turn, the downslide

hers into meth. With others the break in,

the taking of necklaces, bracelets, rings

from drawers, china from shelves, the man,

the woman from home to an ATM.

The car she and the three men stole

stopped on a gravel road.  They marched

the couple, who were not so old not to hear

birds in woods just off the gravel road.

They handed them shovels, made them dig

a ditch, and as they pled, buried them

alive. Payback for all your kindness.

Oh, it wasn’t her, it was the meth, made

her into someone she wasn’t. Someone

she wasn’t? Get real. What fairytale world

are you living? When she had nothing . . .

Yes, but killing her won’t bring them back.

Summer

by Pete Mladinic

I am Rosendo Rodriguez.  Fluent in English

and Spanish, I also speak German, French,

and Italian. I graduated from Texas Tech

with a B.A. in Art History, my main interest,

17th Century Egyptian painting and sculpture.

With a love for travel, I visited Egypt and hope

to go back. I am interested in architecture,

and am earning a master’s degree online

in architectural engineering. I am an inmate

at the Texas correctional facility in Huntsville.

If you are a woman between twenty and forty,

with a college degree, I would love to make

your acquaintance, and correspond through

letters. Should we find mutual compatibility

in our epistolary friendship, I’d like to meet

in person. A warm person, I like children

and animals, and living life to the fullest.

Also, I think you will like my smile and dark

good looks. I’ve been told I am handsome,

but it’s what’s inside a person that counts.

The ashes of Rosendo Rodriguez, I blow

over the landfill outside Lubbock, Texas,

where a suitcase with Summer Baldwin’s

remains was found. The marine reservist

I was, before I was given a lethal injection . . .

I drove her out here, after beating her

to a pulp. She was a sex worker. It wasn’t sex

I wanted. But to batter and kill. Two months

pregnant, alive, when I stuffed her in the

suitcase, this landfill is where she died,

among these mounds of garbage I, the ashes

of Rosendo, blow about, aimless. A clean-cut

marine, he looked like an altar boy, a young

man any mother would love to meet. Summer

wanted to be a beautician. She loved

her young son, who has outlived her twenty-

seven years. One night at a 7-11 she got into

a Ford 150 pick up. The John seemed polite.

A gentleman, opening the passenger door.

“Glad to meet you, my name’s Rosendo.”