Member-only story

Marianne

poem

Vic Spandrio
The Howling Owl
2 min readJan 31, 2024

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Photo by Danie Franco on Unsplash

We are staying with Marianne in San Diego.
Marianne lives in an elderly community on
the city’s outskirts but they don’t call it an
elderly community.

They call it Seaside because from the top of
El Camino Drive one can distinguish a slither
of the Pacific Ocean in the distance.

Marianne lives alone on U-street (the streets
in seaside are arranged alphabetically), she
is 86 years old.

At 19 years of age, Marianne left post-war
Germany with a thousand other Germans
seeking American soil. She learned
English from old newspapers, then from
John Steinbeck, and fell hopelessly in love
with America’s culture of convection ovens
and waffle-makers.

Later, she would love a man of Irish descent
and give birth to three children. Marianne
continues to love her children and
appliances equally.

On Thursdays she drives her red Toyota Camry
an hour to St. Vincent’s hospital where she works…

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The Howling Owl
The Howling Owl

Published in The Howling Owl

The Howling Owl is a juried publication featuring poetry, fiction, essays, and reviews. The publication is committed to quality creative work from a diverse group of writers.

Vic Spandrio
Vic Spandrio

Written by Vic Spandrio

Writer based in New South Wales, Australia.

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