Dolls By Brian Koester

The dolls only move

when you’re not looking.

They wait til deep

in the night.

 

I am an action

figure

as fragile as

a peppermint stick

and as easy

to dissolve.

 

The music box plays

Dark Eyes;

our bodies listen.

 

Who will get sick?

Who will go

matryoshka?

Who will steal blood?

 

The dolls talk.

The dolls choose me.

 

Under silk,

under velvet,

under satin,

their skin.

 

I only survive

by the luck

of the rising sun.

 

Brian Jerrold Koester is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a Best of the Net Anthology nominee. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts and has been a freelance cellist.