The Judgment of Solomon
BY KYLE MICHELSON
Holly Solomon, soon to be mother from Mesa, Arizona,
woman of recent infamy: I read the blog they wrote about you
on Gawker. The title mostly says it all: Woman Blames Husband
for Obama’s Re-Election, Runs Him Over with Jeep. It’s amusing
the way they feature your car in the title. One commenter
wants to punch you in the face. Yet another asks in earnest,
“Am I alone in feeling as if another civil war is brewing
in this country?” Holly, for you, I can’t help but wonder
the same. Your mug shot discloses a divided face: one eye,
hooded and angry. The other implores. In another picture I find,
you look young and bright in your framed glasses, arm-in-arm
with your husband, Daniel, perhaps at a family dinner.
Holly Solomon. Your name is gorgeous for its assonance,
delightfully poetic. All those round, resounding O’s. Holly:
I wonder if, years ago, late after a night with Daniel, you began
testing his last name. Did your heart skip at the prospect?
That gorgeous sound you would inherit. I like to imagine
you curled in bed, warm on a frigid desert evening. Perhaps
on your regrettable night, as you circled Daniel in your notorious
Jeep, staged beneath white halogen lights, this memory began
working its way up through your heart, its soft darkness
a bud unfurling in your throat. Perhaps, after hitting him, you spilled
out of the car like upturned water. None of the accounts tell,
Holly. Between you and me, I’m not sure anyone else cared to ask.
