Little Bisque Doll and the Quake

By Leona M. Johnson

Dolls of glazed porcelain in China towns

Posed proudly upon their doily shelves, yet

I am dusty beneath the kitchen chair.

Bowing bluebells brush the rounded dress hems

To match their stardusted gaze of wonder

While my skirt remains blank, devoid of paint.

I’m bound by a box of musty restraint,

Mounds of dry cracked packing peanuts to crowd.

Rendering possible glory withered.

My faded face is easy to forget

Behind the tinted plastic that ill forms

The crooked window of my great despair.

Guests fawn upon the dolls smiling there

With their rose-kissed ruby lips, corners quaint,

While my faded grin heaps judgment on them.

My desperate desire is to astound

So among the lovely I can be set

And no more watch jealously from under.

The diamond princesses are loved in number,

Unlike I, my bleak, tarnished face left unfair,

Confining me to shadows of regret.

High above, those made angels would not taint

Their gaze on me where dirt and rot abound

In my sealed cardboard box without a friend.

The shaking shelves tip their glass diadems

To the rumbling, tumbling boom of thunder

Hurled by the fearsome storm raging unbound.

The dolls inch forward to Doomsday’s sly dare,

But their beaming smiles refuse to faint

From their cheerful faces despite the threat.

Lightning flashes to shock; their silhouettes

Shudder and shake as the tallest upends

And plunges to shards like a martyred saint.

Blood smiles frozen, they smash asunder

To coat me in their ash of no repair;

The last, still flawless, tips to end facedown.

I stare at the grimacing grins plundered

Before crouching in my box to lament,

Welcoming the dust to keep me unfound.

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Leona M. Johnson is a poet, short story author, and novelist. Her work focuses on relatable protagonists, fantastical creatures, and supernatural oddities. Johnson has published poetry in LAMP Literary Magazine.