My Lollybaby,
pink-and-white gingham ragdoll,
she was safety against the night.
I was four, I was five,
I was tiny crescent fingernails and
baby shampoo. In that crumbling housing authority
I slept with a ghost, a long-dead madman
whose gaze violated me,
yanked my neck to look over my shoulder
as I walked down the hall.
When my mother pulled Lollybaby
from a box
years later,
I was an adult with a child of my own. I left her
on my bed
and fell asleep, never knowing the visions she would seep
or the way my body would soak them up
hungrily. I dreamt of things best left unsaid,
and when I awoke I threw Lollybaby
in the trash, unwilling
to let her ruin
another set of sheets.