Doll Project
hello dolly this is
Dorian dolly
it’s so nice to have
you back
where you belong.
she shares a project
where rural women craft
dolls as gifts and income.
from her workshopping bag
we choose a doll or
soft toy.
I adopt a cross –
billygoat/wildebees,
grey and blue wooled,
button eyed, floppy
horns,
stuffed with cotton wads.
the creature rests on
my lap.
I imagine this story gran
snipping, scissors
grunting,
through the scrap of felt,
butting the bunting
with her thumbs.
fingers shape innards.
she sews on a chair
against a sun gather wall
with other wrinkled women.
a bead eye on her thread,
her hand dips in
rhythm,
a monkey defleeing her young.
each stitch a kiss, each
ball
a clew to who she
is.
I, undolled
in boyhood,
watched a senile granny
wandering the house,
the other ghosted,
years dead before
a cotton womb
and sperm stitch
created me.
I, who strung
an older sister’s
teddy
from the light cord
in blind revenge,
who gave my daughter
Gladly, the cross-eyed bear,
am now undone.
I, who know and tell,
to tribes of women,
stories of dolls in pockets,
that rise alive in
secret nights
and given sustenance,-
bread and beer -
succour the girl,
separate kernel from chaff
and help her outwit
the witch
who smacks her lips
waiting for failure,
now succumb to this
soft shaman
pawing my ground and
being,
sprung from an ancient’s
patience,
clicking in needle tongue
born now in this
circle.
and as I sit
in buzzing silence
dolour rising,
Billy Wildebees
and I
exchange places.
I nest on its animal lap,
sigh, say hello and
know the touch of enough
in a heart stitched
whole.
Dorian
Oct 08