Self In 1958

What is reality?

I am a plaster doll; I pose

with eyes that cut open without landfall or nightfall

upon some shellacked and grinning person,

eyes that open, blue, steel and close.

Am I approximately an I. Magnin transplant?

I have hair, black angel,

black-angel-stuffing to comb,

nylon legs, luminous arms

and some advertised clothes.

I live in a doll's house

with four chairs

a counterfeit table, a flat roof

and a big front door.

Many have come to such a small crossroad.

There is an iron bed,

(Life enlarges, life takes aim)

a cardboard floor,

windows that flash open on someone's city,

and little more.

Someone plays with me,

plants me in the all-electric kitchen,

Is this what Mrs. Rombauer said?

Someone pretends with me -

I am walled in solid by their noise -

or puts me upon their straight bed.

They think I am me!

Their warmth? Their warmth is not a friend!

They pry my mouth for their cups of gin,

and their stale bread.

What is reality

to this synthetic doll

who should smile, who should shift gears,

should spring the doors open in a wholesome disorder,

and have no evidence of ruin or fears?

But I would cry,

rooted into that wall that

was once my mother,

if I could remember how

and if I had the tears.

(June 1958-June 1965)

Note: Irma Rombauer wrote America's best-selling cookbook The Joy of Cooking.

ArtemisWorks 1997