Ode to a Man Who Once Called Me a “Porcelain Doll”

A free verse poem

Photo by Andrea Joseph via ReShot

years ago, when I was still
wading in closeted waters, a man
I loved wrote a poem for me.
he had always been kind — never
uttered a word of disrespect in
my direction and I swam in
every word of his as if they
were Heaven’s bath.
his poem, entitled, “porcelain doll,”
stuck to my bones and
hasn’t pulled its gluey residue
away from me, and I
hold on…