Nailed into each pine,
Like watchers: rosary black
Whiteless eyes, toddler smiles
Older than the canopies.
Passing by the middle tree:
His grimace preserved in the bole’s gnarl
Knotted from the lopped bough.
Cricket-caught life-longed sounds
We never heard. One by one, passing the one
Beam of light, we touch his frozen tears.
Fearful of penance, reverent for prize,
No turning back from the twelve nuns.
“Dolls” was printed in Ditch'em, No. 7 of Inwood Indiana. Pick up the paperback from Prolific Press; the stories and poems published online are free to read here.
Get the paperback