After Juliet Cook’s The Spindle Girls
In the hospital waiting room
all of the dolls lackluster
they shine on to a boy named
Milton.
Milton lay the dolls down
in a circle on the floor:
An asylum solar system.
Mildred disintegrates in sun.
Pauline evaporates on Mars.
Joyce drowns on Neptune
and so on.
Milton plays all over the
bodies for a fortnight.
The horses whinny.
Peregrines crash the windows.
On the 7th day
Milton the grave maker
tapes each mouth shut and
drops them from the 4th floor
Laboratory window.
The limbs and necks burst into feathers
blow across the yard
into the mouths of stable hands
eager to light up a torso.