Dollmaker
by Maria Nazos

1

She burned the fat out of
the baby’s brain like a shriveled flower--
while some mothers scallop
potatoes, she split her child’s
cerebellum in two and sucked it like a split nutshell. I meant to
crack the brown walnut shell
The pail infant slept in, peel back the brown
Layers, and expose the tiny ivory child to photosynthetic salvation
For your own good I said to the shriveled cabbage white. But she
got to it first

2

Now I sit, tracing the paths of my veins, searching for a
Helix to unwrap, an old watch to reset.

She resurfaces from time to time, floating up
From the floor in vapors, this time neither one of us
Can hear each other’s screams as we begin to cry.

3

The babies: one black as a sea urchin, even though
Her clavicle pokes through the layers of eggplant
Flesh, it is only a matter of time before she becomes
A skeleton, an outline, of bones, bones, bones,
Even blacker than ever.

4

Her babies: brooch their tears through their hearts,
holding their pharynx in a gold box

5

Her babies: ingest semen,
in a row, one gold, one chipping brown, one gone.
One clasps her hand over her eyes and removes her eyeballs, one
put her fermium in a conch. One sits with
blood on her mouth, a row of ivory skulls in front of her,
licking her fingers dry.

 

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