Wee Small Hours

I'm just the wind-up girl

sitting on the shelf of the world

watching it pass me by

but my words and my dreams

are my living doll seams

and through them some light can shine in.

It all started in the nursery

with Old Mother Goose that my mother read me

the rhyme is the ticket

to stick bits and snippets

and for such a long time

I'd replay them in my mind:

a litany against thoughts unkind

brought to life by tongues like blades

--words have the power to break or to save--

Instead of breaking I would bend

to be wound back up again

and all my clockwork cogs I'd send

to that magical place "Where the Sidewalk Ends."

rhymes and rhythms

disperse light like prisms

rainbows of feelings reflected

into hearts where otherwise rejected

this is the gift that I learned

so important to someone who themself has been spurned.

I'm just the wind-up girl

sitting on the shelf of the world

but the words of my seams

are poems on reams

and give me a reason to try

to open the window and let the light in

to open my heart

and let

it all

in.