Moose

A little slow and thick around the waist, she was fond of wading in the muck. Always late, she would walk into class, then take her place behind a nerd or geek. Freckled and blonde, and masculine of shoulder, she looked like Butkus ready for the grid, and yet her soft blue eyes betrayed a dancer, the Isadora Duncan of tenth grade. I was the quiet boy who sat up front, who weighed his words and loathed all cruelty, and yet one day I spoke and made her hurt. The name I gave her chased her through the hallway, followed her home, and everywhere she moved, down the decades and into the grave.