FORESTS, TREES AND PURPLE COWS:
AN EMILY DICKINSON CONVERSION OF THE MIND
by Wendy Barker
Page 8
FOR WANT OF DOLLS1.
A woman bends
over a blanket she opens
to offer a gift: Peruviandolls for the dead.
Formed from shreds, figures shaped
like family, friends, madeto keep the dead from loneliness.
Their yarn mouths grin
wide ovals, loose braids driftdown long skirts, the weave
ravelling, thread dropped
from the warp.Some of the dolls hold
little ones, babies, faces
pale as the shells of eggs.One lies on her back, swollen belly
covered with a tapestry of gold, red.
Three figure lean over heras the baby emerges.
I gather the dolls in a row
in my room. Silentcolor of berries,
doves, of rings
inside trees.2.
Six years old, Phoenix
subdivision too new for trees,
too hot for flowers, I cravedthe Story Book Dolls at the dime store,
full skirts that rustled
like petals pressedinto cardboard and cellophane boxes.
Dolls named after stories I read
in my room with the blindsdrawn from the sun, from the square yard
outside, bare except for the oleander,
castor beans we were toldnever to touch with our mouths.
I saved my nickels
for months, but all I could buywas a plain doll, short skirt,
not someone from a book,
Snow White, SleepingBeauty cost too much, their velvet
and lace, coiled hair, shining
crowns. I wanted themto bloom in a row over my bed,
their wide skirts, petticoats
ruffling the bare wall.3.
I remember in France, driving to Chartres,
how the cathedral
lifts the valley around it. I rememberour eyes rising to portals
where saints are gathered
in rows, where stonehas been carved into lace, stories
for people who couldn't read.
And I remember how we enteredin silence the vault of light
and faced the rose
window, its great roundringing circles within
circles
where doves wingdown to the mother
offering her child,
pale, oval faces blooming.
