i slept with a koala for the first time last night. my mother, not being able to detect sarcasm long-distance, dutifully dragged a stuffed mama bear, complete with attendant baby, back from australia. or perhaps she could detect the underlying seriousness of my sarcasm. when i was seven or so, i gave my significant collection of stuffed animals away to our housekeeper's daughter. my barbies, too; but those i was far less attached to.
my animals, which seemed to multiply every time i glanced at their corner, required attention and i was fair: though i had a favorite, a nameless limpid-eyed brown Pound Puppy, i made sure to ration out nights relatively equally among them all so none would feel left out. the responsibility of leadership. or is it ownership? i enjoyed sleeping with the Pound Puppy best and continued stubbornly through fourth grade. one day my brothers and i arrived home from school to find a daft, dopey golden retriever smiling at us on our lawn. we thought there must have been some mistake: my parents had told us, firmly, repeatedly, that we could not have a dog. yet here one was, already named sheba, two years old, and far bigger and stronger than i was. when i timidly attempted to take her around the block, she nearly pulled my arm from its socket: she dashed, i bumped along behind like a parasailer; and my parents, reassuringly, yelled: "remember, you're walking her!"

last night my arm found the koala rigid and unfamiliar. for ten years, i'd slept holding maybe the corner of a pillow. but deeper down, some primal part of me must have remembered the simple joy of clutching the Pound Puppy, which was the only one of my collection i kept. perhaps i should have parted with it volitionally and spared myself the trauma of coming home one afternoon to find a trail of carnage-crumbs leading to my doorway and sheba's smile full of cotton. twice, mom sewed up the eviserated Pound Puppy, but the third time there was nothing even jesus could have done. we laid the scraps to rest and i came to terms with the fact that i had a real dog now and that would have to suffice.

the koala is soft. it stares, which startled me this morning. perhaps it misses australia. or perhaps it sensed, over the course of the night, for what it was really substituting.