little girls

It was a long time ago
When I had my baby
Don’t know where she is now
Leaves turn colors on the trees and fall to the ground
Year after year
Year after year
Year after year
And still no word from my one true little love

I gave her all I had
2 blankets, a dime, some cans of tomato soup
She left with them so many Christmases ago
And did not say thank you
Now I wait for her
There’s a chair on the porch where I can see the road
I had taken to it myself once
But that was when I was young
Now you can’t trust strangers
Their thoughts are filled with images from dirty magazines
And the eye of the law watches wherever you go

Porcelain dolls I kept
They all look like you
But each from a different time and place
An Arabian princess
A Medieval wench
A little Indian girl
A Warholian drag queen
Naked and twisted you carved your way out of my womb
And ran away on four legs
So now, each night
Vigil on the porch with a Pabst Blue Ribbon and old folk songs
Dreaming, dreaming, waiting for you to come home

1.26.2011