Free Verse Poetry
Emergency Room
the games children play
“let’s play Dolls’ Hospital” my brother would say, and I would foolishly hope there might be a place I could hide them all away …
No more dreaded game could be suggested,
guaranteed to chill my childish tenterhooks to frozen wishes:
“Let’s play Dolls’ Hospital”, my brother would say,
and I would foolishly hope there might be
a place I could hide them all away,
safe from his scalpel and his razor-edged
smile, filled with the glee of plastic blood
he saw as delicious gore and I as grim
death coming to them all…with newly shaven heads
and nipple pins and blue eyeshadow marks of felt-tip pens.
“A cut at the eye and she’ll see better”, his cackle said.
And I, thinking — she is only a baby, a Teeny Tiny Tears,
her clothes don’t fit, were knitted by some friend of someone
and passed to me, to put on her with love,
to be bundled rocking, a-lullabies,
and hours of play where I forgot the other things.
