This lifeless construction, Yellow hair curled and twisted, The forever motionless face of rubber, The dark marked eyebrows, The flexible pug nose, Spongy red cheeks, Camel's-hair eyebrows Moving up and down. Lifting her up, her eyes fly open, They stare into space -- An unmoving blueness. Those never winking, moving balls, Controlled from the inside, And that thick rubber body, The imprint of a navel, The undersized hands, The thick soft knees, The screwed-on head, The air hole behind her neck, All this in its lifelessness Gives me a feeling That children are amazing To imagine such a thing alive. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE AGED STRANGER; AN INCIDENT OF THE WAR by FRANCIS BRET HARTE THE CHURCH-PORCH by GEORGE HERBERT A SONG TO CELIA by CHARLES SEDLEY TO JANE: KEEN STARS by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY LAUTERBRUNNEN by THOMAS GOLD APPLETON GHOST-BEREFT; A SCENE FROM BOGLAND IN WAR-TIME by JANE BARLOW THE AWAKENING OF THE TREES by WILLIAM ROSE BENET |