Poewar perspective

Gooneybird

I used to be loved by a little girl,

but she grew up

and I found myself in a yard sale.

A woman with black hair and brown eyes said,

“What a lovely red-headed doll!”

and bought me for a quarter.

Her husband called me Gooneybird

and the name stuck.

I had a happy life there.

All their grandchildren and visitors

would come play with me.

But then the elderly couple was no more.

I went home with one of the daughters.

Now, I sit in the living room in a blue chair my size,

next to a dummy named Jim Rabbit.

Besides my pink dress, I wear a white hat from a girl

who once lived there and a crocheted multicolored scarf

that had belonged to the old man who had named me.

Now a childlike man stoops down before me

and stares at me as if waiting for me to talk.

I wish I could. I’d tell him he has a nice smile.