Kathleen

Whatever you want to know, I'll tell you, about being old and not believing it, about losing pieces of hair and toes and god knows, but grinning back at the world anyway, one cheery red grin.###Ottavio the toymaker gave me this grin, though he's long gone now.### He made at least a dozen of me, delivered to little shops from one side of the Arno to the next.### I sat for years watching that river. ### Some dolls are observers.### We don't live in tiny houses and wear outfits.### We stay propped, we watch, we think and we wait for our thoughts to be read.### In the end we unravel like other toys, but there is something about a doll that spends its life watching - how you want to keep me near, put me on your mantle, glance everyday to see, have the half-gone eyes moved, is the tuft of hair still curled and, most of all, is that old doll still the mystery you need me to be.