I don’t want to begin.
Those metal ribs, stiff cloth
will rasp my knuckles.
It’s pretty, though—
its ribboned wings
pink like my doll’s flesh,
unfolding above the alarming
grey-white of her thighs.
She lies face up,
her spine against its spine.
Her doughy belly–I know
it won’t flatten. I know
it will mound up the more
I try to squash it, strain to
make wing touch pretty wing.
“Let go, start over,
try again.” The hooks
move closer to the eyes.
To fit one into the other—
not a task for her palsied fingers.
One. Two. Now it’s easier.
A dozen to go, all down
the front of my mother’s girdle.
Hook and eye, hook and eye,
she and I, hook and eye.
.
.