48 The Bride Doll Finds a Husband

In a small village a bride doll tires of living by herself.  I will go out and find a husband, she says, and that very day she sets out to find him.

After passing through several towns she at last comes upon a curious doll shop managed by an even more curious shopkeeper doll.  I am looking for a husband, says the bride doll.  The shopkeeper does not speak but he motions the bride doll to a nearby rack.

The bride doll feels sorry for a man doll whose plastic eyes have fallen out.  I will take this one and fix him, she says to the shopkeeper, who frowns but says nothing.

Many months pass after the bride doll has fixed her husband's eyes and one day she says to him, I think it is time for us to have children.  The husband doll picks her up and locks her in the icebox.  When at last he opens the door, the bride doll smiles weakly and gives him a hug.

When she decides again to ask her husband about making children, the husband doll ties her in a box until morning.  And as often as she repeats her request, he responds in a similar fashion, but the bride doll never complains.

A day comes when the bride doll hears a knock against a closet door.  When she opens the door, she is surprised to find that the shopkeeper doll she had met years earlier is tied up.  What are you doing here? she asks.  The shopkeeper doll does not reply, and the bride doll shuts the door again.

When her husband is home from work, she says, husband, there is a man in our closet.

His children are dead, he answers.  I have shut him in our closet so he cannot hear them scream.

That very night, the bride doll helps her husband with his bath.  She runs the water and begins to clean him.  She holds his head under to rinse his hair.  As he smiles at her from beneath the water she continues to rinse his hair.  The bride doll begins to hear the cries of children, and she hears them long after the doll bubbles no longer surface.

When at last she looks to her husband, she sees that he has become the strange shopkeeper doll, and she begins at that moment to feel her bride doll body welling up with child.

  

"The Bride Doll Finds a Husband" from The Collection  

Inspired by Susan Gibb's Equality

47 The Scientist's Reply

The poet and the scientist argue about causal relationships.

Think of the sun, the poet begins, as my daughter. I command her to rise, and she rises. I command her to sleep, and she sleeps. By this metaphor, I refute the scientific principle stating that the risings and settings of the sun are caused by the rotation of the earth upon its axis.

Ahh! retorts the scientist, pausing for effect. As the sun has given birth to the earth whence the command to rise is given, so should the daughter you have borne bid you to rise.

The poet answers shrewdly. But I have not given birth to my daughter. Such chores are the duty of my wife.

The scientist is prepared for this answer. Well then, he says, stroking his chin, think of your wife as the moon, which commands the night when you have put your daughter to rest. Further recognize that your wife takes her light from your daughter, who sleeps surreptitiously beneath the horizon.

I am betrayed, says the poet.

"The Scientist's Reply" from The Collection

46 A Lone Piper Reflects

Inspired by many of Billie William's seascapes

45 Fireworks

The faceless enemy has breached the gate; the tower has collapsed.
Soldiers collect fallen comrades and wait
Once again to rise against their common foe.
We, the people look for safe refuge and strong leadership,
Knowing in our hearts that only an assembled will can preserve the city,
Salve the breached wall, and prevent the fall of a people.

"9/11/2001" *
from The Collection


 * written on evening of September 10th, 2001

44 The Delicate Face

A mother and her son have come to the beach.  They come upon a face  baking in the sun.

I shall tell this face that he is baking in the sun, says the son.

No no, shouts the mother.  To do so would be most inappropriate.  After all, the face may well be a cake baking in an oven.  To disturb him might well cause him to go flat.

But I tell you he is only a face, says the son.  And if something is not done soon, he will...

No no, his mother repeats.  He may well be an intricate piece of pottery drying in the sun.  To disturb him might cause a crack in his side, which is most delicately etched with the history of his people.

But mother, screams the son, the face begins to melt.

Stay away then, warns the mother.  The face may well be a nuclear explosion, and to touch him would certainly mean your death.

A face melts into nothingness in the sand.

O dear, says the boy.

"The Delicate Face" from The Collection

Thanks to Susan Gibb for her inspirational piece, The Face

43 Globes no.2

42 Strange Days no3