Imagining you’d come to say goodbye,
I made a doll of raffia and string.
I gave her thatch hair, and a broomstick skirt
of patchwork satin rags. Around each eye
I stitched thick lashes; such a touching thing
she was! That even you could not debate –
impassive, undemanding and inert.
Yes, surely she’d cause you yourself to sigh.
Around her breast, I sewed a loden ring
to guard her cotton heart from being hurt,
then sat down in the fabric scraps to wait,
between the rafters and the furnace grate,
needle in hand, and never so aware
no craft on earth is master to despair.  

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Jennifer Reeser is the author of two poetry collections. She has contributed work to numerous online and print anthologies, as well as to journals such as Salt, The Formalist, Able Muse, The Avatar Review, Disquieting Muses and Louisiana Literature.
Website: http://www.geocities.com/jdreeser
 

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