Back in the early 80s my then boyfriend and I took a train up to Boston to stay with some old college friends of his. We rented a car and one day drove to Salem. While walking the cobbled streets we saw about ten feet ahead, a little boy stomping on something. As we came closer, I could see that it was a Barbie doll, naked with a severed head--the head just inches from the rest of the body. The little boy looked so rabid and my imagination just saw him frothing at the mouth--I'm sure he wasn't but to this day I imagine him that way--so angry that it frightened me.

In one of the neighborhoods I lived in, while walking down an alley, I saw a doll’s head just lying on the wet pavement.  It was all ratty and it made me think about what it was like when it was new.  I thought about the little girl that might have owned it and how she outgrew it or was it her brother,  a mean-spirited boy who tore it apart and threw it out the window.  Salem still haunted me I guess.

The next time I visited Salem was a couple of years ago with my sister.  We walked the streets, in and out of shops trying to find something specific but can't now remember what.  While we headed back to the car I caught sight of a headless doll and started laughing.  I told my sister the story as we continued to walk only to find the head several feet further.  I couldn't believe it and just had to photograph it.  Instead of a dress this week, I just had to present the Salem doll here.  South Loop Review published these two images in which I titled "Exhibit A" and "Exhibit B."  The poem that follows (written in 2004) is called "Abandoned Doll."

Abandoned Doll

Autumn at dusk
a doll’s head
kisses
the wet street
 
a muddied face
ratty red hair
far from her origin
in limbs and torso
 
once perfect
homogeny
now a severed family
wet faces, purple marks
 
eyes scratched out
left surrounded in broken glass
a place of rival gangs
shooting down alleys
 
if she could talk
what would she say—
these unimaginable
earthly rips kept secret