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   d o l l    f o l l o w s

--- K E L L Y   B A N C R O F T


1.

Grandma dreams the doll

follows her room to room begging her to please part her fused fingers so that she might braid her own yellow hair or squeeze a boy's thumb or sing into a stick or slap a pretty face, fingers so that she might cradle a daughter who surely could not fall if she had knuckles and thumbs to hold her right. Oh, what she might have done with the proper hands, Grandma dreams all night. 2.

Thirteen dolls

1. sunburst retinas dilate with love 2. wooden clogs on her little feet ships to hold drunk sailors 3. pee hole, eye hole, eye hole, mouth hole. Glycerin tears the soap stars cry 4. Uncle Ed buries her in the yard up to her chin, mows around her for weeks, warns the retards next door that's them, they step one foot on his grass 5. fasten me lace me snap me braid me button me off we go 6. Grandma promises the absent grandchild the doll with the Fuller brush lashes, the stuck- open eyes 7. the absent child of the absent grandchild 8. the stray cat swells to a pear at the door 9. Mi Amor says the flamenco dancer with the parenthesis spine bent into the lover who wooed her singing under the balcony of my glass shelf 10. push the button in the back and pull the hair and that's the sound of my father's fishing reel reeling in the snag at the end of the line 11. three slack strings of the sitar. pigeon toes. hair like cobwebs. the powdered face of the women the sailor loved over seas. 12. seven girls on army cots crying 13. Barbie suns on top of the Dream-van, dreams mortgage, foot-rub, fences like shining rows of teeth

3.

Birthday card and clipping

HER "NEW DOLL"--Ten-year-old Hortensia Gomez Juan cuddles "my new doll," a 4-pound, 7-ounce son born to her in Jalapa, Mexico. The mother and baby, born in a normal birth, are doing fine. Police said a wealthy neighbor, who hired the girl as a servant several months ago, had been arrested on charges of child violation.

Dear granddaughter I hope you have a nice birth day I wish I could be their with all of you well you will be a grown woman do you have a boy friend out their I no you will hate to leave him oh well they are plenty boys here but none is good all on dope they are kiling people and raping night and day I never go out at night when you stay here I will lock the windows you are the prettiest girl like a doll (if your Mom forgets to get me a little flower plant you get me one) I close with lots of love Your Grand M a

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