I stand beside the kangaroo doll

Hoping that when I close my eyes

It will begin to make a blazing tattoo

Tell the story of a life

Not necessarily its own life, or that of another doll

But the crying, defecating, urinating, sucking, sleeping

Beginning of one and the ending of another

Toothless, without hearing or sight,

Wrinkled lame and gaunt,

Parchment pale by passed years of desperation

Torn by age

Punched and pulled by an arrangement of furious souls

Purged on a pyre of red lilies

And ivory roses

The marsupial dream of youth