'Play With Me' by Lauren Davis

I’ve been digging up dolls all autumn. Headless porcelain bodies, or just an arm. Some as small as a quarter. I lay them in a line along the bedroom window before I sleep. Night slaps their skin, black air creeping beneath the sill.

I dig and dig. Wet grit of the yard stains my nails. Mud becomes a dark glove. Leaves tangle my hair. It seems like I am always bent in the dirt, but this is not true.

Mother watches over me while I dream, while I dig. Mother’s forever bed is beneath the pantry.

When I am not sleeping, and I am not digging, I creep out of the watchful gaze of always silent mother. I stuff the doll parts in the deep pockets of my red dress and I go over the hill and below the bridge and I hum and sing and watch the dolls play in the stream. I love to hear them laugh.

Crow comes to sit by the bank. Crow never plays, but has lots of opinions on the rules. I say, Listen here, Crow. You can't just sit there and criticize and nitpick. But I don't really mean it. Crow is audience, and that's enough for me. It's a gift really.
They call me alone. They call me orphan, the townspeople. As if I am a woman without. They do not know about all of my friends—Crow, the baby doll heads with rubbed off eyes, my deep asleep mother.

Every time the dolls drown, I put them back in the ground, and we start all over again.