Poem

Nicole Cooley

House Keep: A Suite

A Polly Pocket

Body smelling like burned tires,
all petroleum, bad plastic.
Cap of matted, too-bright hair.
Small intact body—
the bad third child, girl caught
between my two.
Thumbelina hanging in a sparrow’s teeth

Miscarriage

The baby not lost as if we left her
out in the yard overnight, as if
she sunk alone into gravel and mud.

Rocking Chair

Flood of milk: one breast, then the other.
Don’t lose count.
Milkstruck.  Milkdrunk. Milkslept.
Overmilked:  Impacted. Engorged.
Careful: flip the nipple from her mouth.
Drink a dark, dark beer,
a stout in a tall glass.
Set it beside your nursing station.

A Jolly Jumper

Strung in the doorway these pink ropes and pulleys. She swings, trapezed as if
she could leave her body. Crying.

The Cot with Cold Sheets

To slip inside clean
hospital corners,
like a fork in a drawer,
to sleep
for one night
with no other bodies,
what I most want.

Sweeping the Kitchen

Keep track: tracks in the dirt: dirt tracked in: in this house you can’t
keep track of anyone: anyone could do this, you whisper, could be
this mother: you’re the only one who’s failed.

Hello Kitty Coloring Book

lies too open on the kitchen table like a woman, legs splayed, apart—

”I had a bad dream”

After, she won’t let me hold her but she arcs
her leg over mine. Her hair is sweet wet grass,
hair I cut and save in a drawer
for her own daughter.
My job to keep track of their past.

Inventory

Double Stroller   Highchair with Broken Strap   Swing Where She Didn’t Sleep
Red and Blue Trike

The Mother’s Body

Cervix – a hole like a cigarette burn in a wedding dress.

Wet Nurse

After they sleep, I lie down on the floor with their toys.
I’m keeping track.
In the dollhouse attic bedroom
an old, old, tiny doll,
breast bared. Sharp cold white bisque: a mother.

Nicole Cooley is from New Orleans and loves miniatures, dollhouses, and collections. For the past few years, she has been visiting small museums across the south and writing about them—spoon museums, bottle museums, glass museums, lock museums, doll museums and more. She loves ephemera and believes it tells the true story of a place.
nicoleruthc@yahoo.com

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