She's a doll

she misses pine cones    beach wind she misses

soft carpet beneath heels and food she misses grapes, pears 

(an emptiness inside her so vast you can hear the penny

of longing clink inside her)   she knows

without desire she is dead as a doll

but that's what she is--

doll/angel

at the top of a tree in a room

somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere

she bites her lip till she can taste red

in her mouth   you'd never know

by looking at her with those feathered

wings    gowned at the tree's top

that descendos into her needles

and all no one

ever gave her a name she's spent

her life looking out

through the plastic of an attic box

the occasional scamper

of a mouse    the sound of voices

below laughter below   so bright

she wants to become it   wants to move

as it does:    fill a room

with the sound of the beating of a body

that will never be her own