A doll’s house
gleaming copper downspouts and red tar shingles
a dream kitchen, smuckers, wonderbread and pringles
carpet, and padding. stretching from wall to pastel wall
new clothes, designer labels, clean empty tables
a cat and dog. the little girl spends her days in many ways
three square meals and a healthy snack
fruit and fiber, just what the food pyramid says
but an architecture that she lacks
one little white girl, and one little boy black
the parents long-ago lost to the family dog
dismembered, buried and resting in pieces in the corner of the back
of the backyard, where lovely mah-jong tile headstones bear silent watch
every night, clean, damp, vinyl hair falls like finest floss
onto freshly washed and dried linen, still warm
dogs bark, and angry voices crow from somewhere down below
made reasonably unintelligible by the television’s blaring flow
muffled by the jungle-sounds cassette the girl plays nightly,
to ease hers into the netherworld, where no thing and no one can pass
No slights. No frights. Finally found, tightly gripped,
control.
Strangers come and strangers go, laughter vapors from below
the mornings are always the most peaceful, but one can never know
In the eve, the girl locks her door and sleeps
waits for the signs, listens, the third step creaks
a pocket knife and a serving fork tucked beneath her pillow
her children smile and shine as the first day they were found
islands in the stream but she stretches and grows,
ever more perfect with each sunrise
she fears her little ones will still need her, want her
love her when she goes
every night, vinyl hair falls like finest floss
onto colored, cut-up tablecloths
scavenged and sewn from common dross
little cups and dishes, plastic,orange and green
from three square and a healthy snack
rubbed and polished until they’re clean
another nether evening falls, retire
a prayer for the lost in the corner of the back, sleep.
coyotes call, dogs conspire,
there’s the creak of the third step
and it starts
dark muse 