Doll Maker
Button eyes, sewn smiles;
Under the seams runs the pain.
Each stitch, a heartache.
Fabric scraps and time
(Endless and empty hours)
Are her legacy;
Her generation
Proud to handcraft well-loved toys
For their own children.
But her kids don’t come.
They’ve grown, have kids of their own
Who don’t know her name,
The tenacity
Of her arthritic fingers,
Or her depth of love
(Her depth of sorrow,
Should be left, she thinks, unknown).
She threads her needle.
From every corner,
Button eyes watch in silence
As she starts to stitch.
Prompt Day Eight: I followed the prompt, visiting @carsonbot and choosing a line to become the basis of my poem. My line was, “under the seams runs the pain.”
