The Dolls of 2020
Even the dolls have turned white-haired
at first from shock
and then from unending at-home grooming,
no judging eyes upon them
except through edited electronic captures
Even the dolls in the background
of video chats and meetings
have given up their fine dresses for comfort,
and even the dolls on shelves are dusty
and have lost companions in the virus
But we will return one day
to collect them under our arms,
bathe them in communal rivers,
clothe them in designer frocks,
and let them wander
on their plastic legs from their houses,
hair trimmed and dyed
any unnatural color of their choice,
walking stiffer among the crowds,
breathing laboriously without their masks
Jenny Kalahar is the author of fourteen books and the editor of Last Stanza Poetry Journal. She lives in Elwood, Indiana with her husband in an old schoolhouse full of books. She is at the helm of Last Stanza Poetry Assn. and the publisher for the Poetry Society of Indiana. She’s been published in literary journals and poetry anthologies, and wrote a twice-monthly humor column in the now-defunct Tails Magazine.