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Jayne Pupek

it's going to be a loooooooong day by Didi Wood
it’s going to be a loooooooong day by Didi Wood



What the Doll Wants


The doll is tired of flat-chested mothers
and cups of make believe tea
that taste like mosquito repellent. Even
the fortune cookies are all wrong.
They aren’t supposed to be made
with chocolate chips or contain messages
written in purple crayon. The doll
wants to go out in the rain without
yellow galoshes and raincoat to match.
She is tired of looking like a duck, tired of talcum
powder and books about talking bears. She wants
an apple martini and a copy of Henry and June.
“Give me a carton of shrimp lo mein,” she fumes,
“and a real vagina of my own.”







Beaux Esprits


The dolls decided to convene meetings
on afternoons when the child took ballet.
They wanted to hold discussions about books,
current events and the esthetics of high art.
The doll in the pink dress suggested
a hypothetical: If we had been at Jonestown,
who among us would have drunk the Kool-Aid?
They stared at each other with arched eyebrows
and waited for someone to answer.
All of us, said the doll with the thick mascara.
How could we have refused anything
when we know nothing of choice?
The other dolls nodded quickly and lit
their imaginary cigarettes.







Outfits


When the child leaves for school,
the dolls frolic among the clothes, trying on
different combinations that the child
would never approve. Barbie is at a distinct
advantage with her wasp-waist and rigid
tits. Everything she tries on fits
perfectly. Even the life-size doll has
options—leotards and dresses,
shorts and pajamas and a forest
green jumper sewn from corduroy—
because she and the child
wear the same size. The rag doll
doesn’t have it so easy. She struggles
to squeeze her bulky feet into slim sandals
and breaks the small straps meant to go around
ankles half the size of her own.
The baby dolls, too, grow sick of their
bibs and elastic pants. One kicks
her booties across the room
and pulls her frilly dress
off her shoulders. She says
she is tired of being a baby.
She wants to be a tramp.







Assault


The child’s parents found the doll
naked in the downstairs closet
with her hands bound
behind her back and duct tape
covering her mouth, her plastic
pee-hole and buttocks
marked with lacerations.
When the tape was removed,
the doll spat out a goldfish, a sock,
and three blue marbles
that belonged to the child’s brother.
The boy was sent to reform school
and the doll promised not to tell.
The parents bought her
an aquamarine convertible
and a pair of pink sunglasses
to conceal both black eyes.







Doll X Considers Suicide


Doll X reclines on the analyst’s couch
and runs her hands down the front of her blue tweed coat,
smoothing the wrinkles after a night
in the toy box. She hasn’t slept in weeks, her body shoved
at odd angles between a broken microscope and wax
zombies with entrails hanging from their mouths.
She retrieves a cigarette and leans towards
the psychiatrist, motioning for a light.
Of all the children in the world, how did she end up
on Claremont Drive in the hands of a tomboy
who collects bugs, plays with toy guns and refuses to bathe?
Lately, she has experienced crying spells
and thoughts of suicide. I could do it...the doll sobs...
I know where the kid keeps the gun.







The Bulimic Doll


The doll in the yellow frock waits until the child
goes to sleep before she tiptoes downstairs
and raids the refrigerator, cramming cold cuts
and chocolate cream pie into her open mouth,
swallowing whole handfuls of currants
and the stash of Snickers bars
the child’s mother hides in an empty Folger’s can
for those days when her own hunger
comes on, and she, like the doll,
is never satisfied. As the dog watches,
lapping up dropped morsels, the doll picks up a fork
for the carton of pork dumplings. She swallows
the salty pillows whole, not stopping until
the plastic seams along her torso crack
and wire springs fall from her body
like metallic confetti. In the morning,
the child comes downstairs, rubbing sleep
from her eyes. She finds the bloated doll
heaving on the kitchen floor, her pink
immovable fingers shoved down her throat.







I loved dolls as a child and continue to collect them even now. Dolls have interesting stories to tell, but one must be very quiet to hear them. Another option is to hold the doll’s head under water until she (or sometimes he) agrees to an interview. Off the record, of course.