HUSK

HUSK

She makes the dolls from dry husks

blown in from the field

beside their shack

Baby dolls, boys and girls grandmas

and grandpas

she fashions from the golden waste of

Randolf Brink's crop

The beginnings and endings

of a life

these are the times

worth memorializing

everything else is just

waiting

She uses bits of tacking

or tears up the stained mattresses

for bows on her babies

knickers and dresses

for her children a hat a

bonnet

for the little old couple

She is not the lithe girl who fell

for Jonas Toms

not the fruitful young wife

whose life and children

stretched out before her

like Jonas' long arms

pointing to the far edge of the

land they'd farm for themselves

one day

Laboring another man's field

is all Jonas has ever done

they've had no harvest

to call their own

her dolls are everything

and in each one

she places a seed

the hope she's found misplaced

in herself