for RR
Pandora was a doll with a plastic head
& a boneless fabric body full of give.
Her eyes were a smiling blue
you scraped with a thumbnail one day
to see what lay beneath: blank plastic.
Pandora was a doll with plastic arms
that could be bent into the semblance
of a hug. From a high perch
she watched the bears multiply
on the bed, expert listeners,
burly avatars of comfort. When
the circus master’s mad wife
came to give them all away
to charity, Pandora alone
with her hopeless eye was spared.
You wept until you couldn’t see
& wailed until your voice turned
to a whisper; the bears stayed gone.
Your sad box of a room
held only Pandora.
See Rachel’s response: “Eye (seeing, being)“
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Dog Logic
- The Colors of Noise
- Crossing Wales
- Memo from the CEO of Little Prince, Inc.
- Poems to be shaved into the hair of the author’s back
- Desideratum
- Capture
- Living in Analog
- Organ Meats: A Primer
- Walking Weather
- Beach Glass
- Tree Without Birds
- Hermit
- The Captain’s Reverses
- Pets
- Exchange
- Heart
- Digital
- The Fullness of Time
- Pandora
- Reading the Icelandic Sagas
- Hit the Lights
- Vagina Dialogue
- Helmsman
- Old Norse Family Values
- On Hold
- Heels
- Looking for the Reader
- The conversation continues: two videopoems
Poor Pandora, half sighted, half seer; less loved, so saved. I love these inversions, this turning of the box inside out.