<\/p>\n
\u2018They came back, all the dolls\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Midnight.They rise from<\/p>\n their presentation boxes<\/p>\n with hard, painted smiles.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n One walks stiff as a great aunt,<\/p>\n another lifts her posable arms,<\/p>\n the fairy doll rubs at the hole<\/p>\n <\/p>\n in her hand, wailing for her wand<\/p>\n while the wee-wee doll<\/p>\n curls up with shame.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A naked Queenie opens<\/p>\n and closes her mouth. Mute<\/p>\n since I bathed her,<\/p>\n <\/p>\n her drowned voice<\/p>\n mama, mama, mama,<\/p>\n one eye-socket empty.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The nursery-rhyme doll jerks<\/p>\n towards me, the key in her back<\/p>\n spinning, mouth tight shut Mary, Mary<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And what has my love done<\/p>\n to the sailor doll? His cracked<\/p>\n grin is terrible, his bitten off ear.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Carole Bromley<\/strong>‘s first collection, A Guided Tour of the Ice House, <\/em>was published by Smith\/Doorstop in 2011. She blogs at www.yorkmix.com\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0 and will be judging the York Literature Festival Poetry Competition (deadline 28 Feb) website\u00a0 <\/a>www.carolebromleypoetry.co.u<\/a>k<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Note: This poem was\u00a0 previously published in A Guided Tour of the Ice House<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2018They came back, all the dolls\u2019 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. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-twelve-days-of-christmas-2013"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6094"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23952,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6094\/revisions\/23952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}