hobby horses

What do I do with all of these things

which were never mine? Your dirty knees,

bubblegum smile. I was listening

to daddy’s baritone wind pipes

when you captured the tattered tabby cat,

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

held her pumpkin body under pale bedsheets

the color of plastic skeleton bones and daddy’s pillow.

Buck tooth smile, ladybug freckles, gecko tails:

you thought they wouldn’t run, abandon their

ends. Shoe strings, your over read picture book,

paint under your arms, caked in your scarecrow hair.

Favorite horse, soft like the living room cushions, stiff

as daddy’s collared shirts and old kitchen dish cloths.

You dragged that pony everywhere, sucking on one

glass eye in all these old photographs I tape

over the windows.

Old hobby horses, muffling dusty light.