dolls

by Sarah Daly

Pretty guises are they:

lipsticks of every color,

dyes of every shade,

skirts of every fabric.

Such pretty apparel

for the dolls we dress 

and then tuck away 

in our dresser drawers.

Dolls who mock us 

with their porcelain perfection,

and whose eyes only close 

when their bodies are perfectly horizontal. 

Hollowed and aged, we cradle these dolls, 

striving for childhood, once again. 

Sarah Daly is an American writer whose fiction, poetry, and drama have appeared in twenty-six literary journals including A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Ibbetson Street Press, The Seraphic Review, Superpresent Magazine, and Stick Figure Poetry.