POeT SHOTS # 9 Blog Post by Ray Greenblatt

POeT SHOTS #9                                                       Blog Post by Ray Greenblatt

STARTING OVER by Lou McKee

After the divorce it took awhile
in a small cheap apartment,
but finally I got another house,
this one bigger, emptier.
I moved in with nothing
of my own to fill the rooms,
but still threw out the two chairs
and table the previous owners left.
I kept the doll I found
in the yard, a Barbie with matted
blonde hair and not a stitch
of clothing. A new wife,
I thought, and I proposed to her
right there in the middle
of my cutting the grass, lifting
my beer in a toast to love
and long years together, and though
I doubt she really wanted it,
I did pour some on her hard pretty body,
and used my fingers to rub away
the mud that was caked all over her.
Later I actually bathed her
in lemon-scented Joy, along with
the dish and glass I'd used for breakfast,
lunch and dinner.
                                I didn't feel weird
about any of this yet, this was still weeks
before I was in K-Mart and bought
the outfit, jeans and a plaid flannel shirt,
Cowgirl Barbie, but for comfort, really,
something to wear around the house.
It would have been wrong if I'd gotten
the tight black sequined dress I saw,
or the hot baby blue mini with the silver
belt and matching fuck-me pumps.
It would have been wrong if I had
kept her naked, sitting on the bookcase
bare-assed for all the wold to see.
But is this so wrong?
                                    She listens to me
sometimes; sometimes I can tell
she is not paying attention at all,
but that's okay; sometimes I'm not much
for talking myself. She is always there
when I need her, though. Is that so wrong?
And I'm always there for her.
                                                  The yard
is her nightmare, but she knows I won't let
that happen to her again. I'm not so sure
about the life she's had, the station to which
she's been accustomed, but it is good here,
in this big empty house. She's treated well,
and her wardrobe, now, is next to none.



Dolls can comfort children. A poet--tongue in cheek--asks if a doll can do the same for a grown up? To start over, we must pare down to basics. We must put the past behind us--no matter how much acting out it takes. It is our own personal psychotherapy.