Chelsea Margaret Bodnar

Dolls like us lose value

when we’re taken          from the box, so let the flowers
in your hair     take you apart               like vines
on old brick houses.                                        What else is there to do?
Hold breath in the bathwater               eyes closed     tight against
the epsom salts          exfoliate your face          your lips      
use lotion formulated               for the circles under eyes, shave legs
until a red thread          twists away from you.               Polish up your shell,
there’s so much time.               The awful clock               in parents’ house
that chimes on the half hour     winds you up, there’s surplus stock
of everything     so when you start to lose          you notice slow,
the flowers in your hair               they love me not,
oh angel eyes              blonde baby                              queen of cups.     Oh
lysistrata, there’s no war                         let up.

CHELSEA MARGARET BODNAR “is not even faintly like a rose.” Her poetry appears in The Birds We Piled Loosely, Freezeray, Leopardskin & Limes, Menacing Hedge, Sad Girl Review, and Wyvern Lit. Her first chapbook is Basement Gemini (Hyacinth Girl Press).