Diana Doll

My red-haired Diana doll
Came in the pink and blue Madame Alexander box
In satin shoes that soon were lost,
Lost too her curvy arms and legs
When she went wading in the swimming pool
Created in the sink of the downstairs powder room.
My mother, though, at no small expense
Took her to the doll hospital in New York
From which, discharged, her limbs again
Hung in elasticized grace.
Still, there was a blemish on her face
A patch where freckles had been wiped bare.

Thirty-five years later, she’s in my daughter’s care
Who loves the tiny yellow checks, the lace
On her best shirtwaist dress as much as I did.
“You must have cut her hair,”
My daughter says, and laughs
At a bald spot behind the carrot bangs.
One night Diana is left carefully on a pillow
On the floor of a friend’s room;
The ferret, who is allowed to roam,
Bites Diana’s soft upper rubber arm
Leaves an imprint of tiny teeth like death.
My daughter weeps, then gathers up again unspoken
This doll named for a pure moon goddess
Who shows us what is loved when broken.