• The wish of a doll

    On the edge of the window is a doll,
    Her face pale in the street lamp mist.
    The cloth girl pulled at her dress,
    Tugging the tight threads, popping a seam.
    But it was not the skirt that ripped a stitch.
    The string that tore belonged to her eye, a button.

    Who made this eye a button?
    What else could be given to a doll?
    How else would a toy see, with no stitch?
    The dust of the room hovered in a mist.
    She pulled again and ripped the correct seam.
    Now she could move, now without her confining dress.

    She wanted to go home, not knowing the address.
    Somewhere, she needed to go, but she couldn’t see without her button.
    Threads weave over and under to make a doll.
    Needles p***k and taunt from the night mist,
    But still she searches, for an eye, for a stitch.

    Maybe she wasn’t a toy. Maybe time has a stitch.
    She wondered alone, cold and undressed.
    She’s lost. She’s lonely. She will not be missed.
    Missing an eye, she walked minus vision, minus a button.
    Maybe she’s tired. Was she even a doll?
    Maybe she was human, contrary to what it may seem.

    No, she’s not human, for threads make up her seams,
    Weaving and winding, held by a stitch.
    Not made of blood, she is a doll.
    Not made of flesh, she wears a dress
    Not skin. Just strings held by a button.
    She cried as she was lost in the mist.

    She came to the store hidden in mist
    With a man, old and frail, it would seem.
    She entered and asked for a button.
    The man sighed as he finished a toy with a stitch.
    “My dear, where is your dress?”
    But she could not speak for she is a doll.

    The man saw the button that she had missed.
    “You cannot see if you lack a stitch, little doll,
    But you seem to also lack the humanity you seek in an eye or a dress.”