Spoils For The Living

The night after I had died mom found my doll,

the mongrel thing hidden

between my walls, and started to cry

not because the bootleg beans began to fall

out one hem in the hip,

because neighboring the handsome blue button

eye was stitched a roseate version that never came undone

when her nails pinched at the threads inside.

Maybe she expected the white tulle to read off Jesus

love songs and when it didn’t her pinky purposely pricked

against it’s everted pins, hoping to baptize

such a blasphemous artifact in a bloody pox

saved for the most deserving sinners.

No she could never admire this piece as shame always echoed

behind conversation with those outside

my Siamese brother, who never picked at its learned condition

and the worm tongued aunt, who hissed curses

in lieu of yesterday’s condolences.

Still rather than propping its soles

in the higher echelons of her cabinet,

reserved for the purest porcelain

virgins, the thing would find itself buried

in a drawstring mausoleum, open to only black rat grievers.