In a snapshot mother framed
There’s that sweet old toy from our childhood
Plastic pellet-filled, floppy eared dog of white terrycloth
Cotton-head drooping from her hand, by the paws
Torn open a multitude of times but always stitched back up
Sometimes opened at the same place, those stitches create the weakest spots
❧
If you push it into a washing machine
It might come out store new
If the water, like grey, shiny stones, rinses off parties of a six year old
And sticky gum and rancid juice
If the drum slamming cracks abraded,
Glass marble eyes open wide
And stitching comes undone, the tears-
They might open up again
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Alarmed by the beeping of a cycle’s end
You can unlock the door to dandelion mounds
Rain-logged clouds
Head flattened out
Unravelling limbs
Red cotton strings
Suspended in the U-bend
You can nip the skin ‘tween two pegs
Unfolding and folding, an outstretched flag like a hand
Lingering ‘round the pelt, pin-hole black bugs
Pinned up as a tiger rug
Where black stripes are her jewels
Are her slices, are her eye shards
Are her blown off body parts
Her lamb throat, her cow heart
Her penance, hecatomb
Midnight vigil, ten years long
In childhood bedrooms
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You can toss it away, just tell them it got lost
And rest in the hovered grasp
At the drooping of the paws
❧
You can let go
The skin will fill itself out
It will balloon—
it will parachute
Photo by Andrew Winkler on Unsplash