How to Make a Doll Father
My father is a shaft of wheat.
Cut down and collected,
bound into the shape of a man.
Voodoo doll or corn-man,
I dress him in stitched paper,
soak him in rose water.
I bring him out into the field
where some devil watches
and his corn dolly bride awaits,
her legs open to the moon.
I make a corn baby
out of a button and tips
of goldenrod, then, a cradle
by digging a hole in the dirt.
I break sticks with my hands,
arrange them into a pyre,
strike the match three times,
cup it with my palm and wait
for the flame to transfer:
a harvest of grief.
The honest sky comes down to say
a water prayer, my father
becomes smoke, becomes me.
