What They Want

What They Want


They covet fields and seize them; and houses, and take them away.
Micah 2:2

1

The men faked a collective boredom, nodded, spat,
bid—and would buy it all divided: pasture,

tractor, flatbed, bulkbarns—then the house
where the auctioneer called, convincing us

to bid for all we had desired, had coveted
all those years: her hats would go for one money—

felt, fur, straw, the velvet one from which the feathers
of an egret rose white and trembled, as though her head

still turned to nod to us. He would make us admit it,
make us wear what she wore, what yet bore her favorite scent,

what we had sworn beneath the preacher's drone,
hissing, we would not be caught dead in.

2

The story had its way with us the way a bee bores first
into the mouth of one rose and then another: they found her

where how many days my word my God the coffin closed
of course can you imagine how sad she died alone, we said, how sad.

By the time we saw the doll wheeled out in its carriage, wicker-white,
it might as well have been her heart cradled, still warm. Held high

above us like a long-awaited heir—old, infant—she delighted us.
The bidding climbed, an aberrant vine, as the doll cried out

her one vowel, eyes opening, then closing inside the perfect
form of her face.—Oh, what we wouldn't give for her.


Claudia Emerson

Posted over on Poetry Daily