Clasped Around Nothing

The wallpaper—

heads of little dolls,

timid, limp, looking down.

Shoes blood-red,

snips of doily lace,

furniture glued in place—

a bed,

and hands clasped around nothing.

A miniature chair

where she sat,

dress long, fuchsia paisley,

shoes pointed,

faces frowning,

hair curled like a fountain pen,

hard as a fingernail.

Sometimes they slept.

They made eggs

in a miniature cast-iron pan.

Hearts to scale

would be twenty feet high,

dwarfed by a house

with Swiss shingles

and red shutters.

Was it what you imagined

when you had no shoes?

You called me beautiful

as though it were my name—

your eyes spooning light from the ocean

when you sailed to Japan

and brought me a white-faced doll,

rosebud lips,

sparrow-red in her glass box,

mountains of kimono

silky and rich.

Is this what you thought of me?

Your hands needed a cigarette—

a lover’s cool, long style.

Did you hold her this way—

the tall lady

who looked like a boy?

Did you pray this way

when you were an altar boy?

Did you run away

to be somewhere else?

Did you love your wife

with her British voice

and cinnamon hair?

Why did you love me so?

Did your daughter abandon you?

She looked with crooked eyes.

Did you catch a bass

in the brackish canal?

Did you drink

to keep the waves

from crashing over your head—

to keep the priest

from tucking you into your bed?

What do we do

when ABCs are scrawled on the floor?

Why did you sleep

with the sea near your door?

To remember a time without land?

Did you still feel

the sway of the ship—

and the robe of the priest

and the bare of your feet—

sharing a bed

with others hungry

and without shoes?

Yes—

you gave me a doll

and a kiss

and called me beautiful.

Was there safety

when you slept on a boat

left to you by someone who loved you?

Left out in a storm—

you found yourself

on shore again,

under the bridge.

The last time I saw you

you did not exist.

Your clothes were Kleenex,

wasted to dust.

I didn’t know

it would be the last.

Mama said the wheels fell off—

the handle rusted,

the wires bent,

the legs broke

with the weight of being born

without a dollhouse

or a daddy

or a dollar.

To watch the world

from too-high a window,

to sleep with feet out

beside another

without a bath,

without a breast—

because Mommy is away

holding someone else’s baby

to her chest.

How does it feel

when the priest says you’re blessed

with a cold glacier love

in the dark night of his eye?

Castle doors heavy,

your body breaking.

The navy ship moves

for years on end,

and the wife is away

with your closest friend—

her hair a nest

for babes to rest.

They came out feral,

blood in their mouths.

You washed away

in a sandy gas station,

in a dark seaside room—

a cube in your scotch-throated glass,

the tall boyish girlfriend

tending your fish tank

until the water turned green

and smelled of mold.

Still—

your hand was steady

when we played with the pail,

dug damp sand,

patted it smooth,

turned it over,

pounded it dead,

and let go—

and it blew off

like a spirit in the shade.