Doll Maker

by Shuly Cawood

Limbs and heads of a hundred dolls
crammed your mother’s store, and you
showed me the shelves of wigged
heads and half-painted eyes
one night after hours. Legs, strewn
everywhere, lay waiting to dry.

You said you loved me
there in her shop, when the shades
drooped over windows, and the dolls
stood, sat, tilted over, so wide-eyed,
naked.

You leaned me up against the register,
and the keys pressed cold and small
in my back, like fingers touching,
searching for a heart.