The stone dolls, found in an Egyptian tomb,
are eyeless, armless, heavy for a child
to hold. Not like the dolls that lined the room
my sister and I shared, their bodies light
and made for being bent, their eyelids mobile,
hair that tangled with our own at night.
And while we were asleep they came to life.
We never pressed our cheeks against cold stone
as pharoah’s daughters did. The doctor’s knife
could not have caught my sister more off-guard
or left me less alone; I had my dolls.
Though, soon, they lay on tables in the yard
with price tags. Even when they looked alive,
survivors with no sickness to survive.
Renee Emerson 