Paper Doll   #133
April  18, 1998

I had
an invisible friend
I never named her
(what was the point really?)
She never smiled

she never had a face

Taking out scissors
and my best markers
I began
Thin parchment cut like
cookie-cutter-gingerbread

Plain Jane, I gave her a mouth

She never said
Hello
I never minded
She slept under my
pillow when she was good;
in a shoebox
when mother
was angry with me

I squatted
as if giving birth to her
Hunched over remnants
of last night's
downpour
I stretched fingers
to drown her
inch by inch, I watched
water overcome
her thin body

a tapered smile
and a stick poked
that incessant little grin
under the rainbow water
until her synthetic smile rose
up to greet mine
and then dissolved
into the reflection
of clouds
and sky