‘They came back, all the dolls’
Midnight.They rise from
their presentation boxes
with hard, painted smiles.
One walks stiff as a great aunt,
another lifts her posable arms,
the fairy doll rubs at the hole
in her hand, wailing for her wand
while the wee-wee doll
curls up with shame.
A naked Queenie opens
and closes her mouth. Mute
since I bathed her,
her drowned voice
mama, mama, mama,
one eye-socket empty.
The nursery-rhyme doll jerks
towards me, the key in her back
spinning, mouth tight shut Mary, Mary
And what has my love done
to the sailor doll? His cracked
grin is terrible, his bitten off ear.
Carole Bromley‘s first collection, A Guided Tour of the Ice House, was published by Smith/Doorstop in 2011. She blogs at www.yorkmix.com and will be judging the York Literature Festival Poetry Competition (deadline 28 Feb) website www.carolebromleypoetry.co.uk
Note: This poem was previously published in A Guided Tour of the Ice House.