To Be Needed Gently

Night settles around the workshop
like a shawl around a tired shoulder.

I sit with the dolls
the way you return to a memory
you can’t quite close.

I take them one by one,
setting each gently on the bench,
as if putting an old house to sleep—

a crack here,
a loosened seam there,
nothing that can’t be tended
with a steady hand.

They sit quietly,
their hair falling in soft disarray,
their eyes open with a stillness
that makes me feel they’ve been waiting,

reflecting the lamplight
as if something inside them
has just stirred.

One has a fine crack along her jaw.
When I lift her,
the fracture catches the light
as if it’s calling for someone
who knows how to look.

I lift another,
feeling the warmth rise in my chest—
the old instinct
to hold what is giving way.

Her crack is small,
and I touch it
as if it were a pulse.

I lift another,
and her crack opens under my thumb—
not in fear,
but in trust.

And I think,
this is what it means
to be needed gently.