When Mom Took Earth Science
She shut herself in her bedroom, reading,
typing. I held a kitten to my breast,
but it wouldn’t suck milk from me.
“Say a big word,” my cousin ordered,
and all I could think of was “college.”
We inspected my metal dollhouse
from all angles, blank back, inner walls
stamped with curtains and art. The dolls’ hair
stuck our from their pink plastic heads,
their beds too small and their chairs too big.
Mom scratched rocks with glass and
pennies, rubbed them across ceramics,
judged color streaks, pasted on labels.
For hours I lay on the carpet
listening for sounds from the other side
of her bedroom door. Pages turned.
Rocks tocked together. Mom had been
sick, and now she was well. Lu and I
got a desk, a big table painted green.
We set up books and a blotter. A warm
lamp bent over us. Lu named every doll
Nancy, but I changed dolls’ names
and forgot which was which. Dolls
in college, I decided, and put them
in rooms with swans on the walls.
The kitten inspected the miniature
icebox. A painted light waited inside.
typing. I held a kitten to my breast,
but it wouldn’t suck milk from me.
“Say a big word,” my cousin ordered,
and all I could think of was “college.”
We inspected my metal dollhouse
from all angles, blank back, inner walls
stamped with curtains and art. The dolls’ hair
stuck our from their pink plastic heads,
their beds too small and their chairs too big.
Mom scratched rocks with glass and
pennies, rubbed them across ceramics,
judged color streaks, pasted on labels.
For hours I lay on the carpet
listening for sounds from the other side
of her bedroom door. Pages turned.
Rocks tocked together. Mom had been
sick, and now she was well. Lu and I
got a desk, a big table painted green.
We set up books and a blotter. A warm
lamp bent over us. Lu named every doll
Nancy, but I changed dolls’ names
and forgot which was which. Dolls
in college, I decided, and put them
in rooms with swans on the walls.
The kitten inspected the miniature
icebox. A painted light waited inside.
Barbara Daniels’ Talk to the Lioness was published by Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press. Her poetry has recently been accepted by Permafrost, Westchester Review, Philadelphia Stories, and Coachella Review. She received four fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the most recent in 2020.