Sandra Kolankiewicz

Sandra Kolankiewicz's poems and stories have appeared in many journals, including North American Review, Mississippi Review, Chicago Review, and Confrontation. Her chapbook Turning Inside Out is available from Black Lawrence Press. Blue Eyes Don't Cry won the Hackney Award for the Novel. Poems are forthcoming in Rhino, Gargoyle, Red Ochre, Meat for Tea, and the anthology Joy: Interrupted.

The Doll House

The tiny chair stuck in the corner even rocks.
The plastic daughter in the daybed sleeps
next to the cot where the grandmother lies covered
under a calico scrap folded into a perfect spread,
wadded Kleenex for a pillow.
The door on the stove even opens, the miracle
inside, bread, risen and baked
hard as a rock, set on the table
where the dolls never cut it,
never eat, nor drink the air in
the small cups set beside the dime-sized plates.
In the kitchen, a butter churn of all things
against the wall, not made into a lamp
but a real churn whose wooden dowel
moves up and down.
The mother makes the butter.
The baby sleeps in the cradle,
the bed,
or anywhere you put her.
The father is gone.