James G. Piatt

There she sits: A doll with one broken arm
that must have once hailed the incoming
ships from exotic seas. With her glazed eyes,
she stares at me with a cheerless whispering
silence as her painted mouth smiles dolefully.
The curled tresses of blond, fading, falling
down her long neck, cover a muted voice that
calls out to the modern world. Her dress,
mottled and ashen, floats in the breeze coming
through the small window in the attic where she
now lives. Alone, neglected, with no child to hold
her, she slowly withers away.