❤️

All dolls come

from the land of the unborn,

the almost-born; each

doll is a future

dead at the roots,

a voice heard only

on breathless nights,

a desolate white memento.

These are the lost children,

those who have died or thickened

to full growth and gone away.

The dolls are their souls or cast skins,

which line the shelves of our bedrooms

and museums, disguised as outmoded toys,

images of our sorrow,

shedding around themselves

five inches of limbo..