Dolly – Josiah Morgan

May 19, 2020

You kept imagining her body, sprawled, a car crash, invisible, dying, freedom from making the decision, but this is only imagination. Six years ago, on your birthday, Dolly had given you a hand-carved wooden box, a lovely idea, now the box sits unused, empty, possibly beechwood, invisible, not yours, not of this time. 

You buried her eyes in your heart. They had not detached easily from the body. When your fingers had made the first attempt, there was such resistance, to this, some arcane act of violence, chopped up, chopped up. When your scissors had made the next attempt, there was less resistance, but too much mess, destructive. 

It was the spoon that finally made the scoop, the knife that for the first time split the skin over your ribs. After so much emotional pavement it felt good to be spoiling it all, sprouting the blood, grass-red, monumental. You pulled your body apart so she could be inside you. You fingered your crevasse long enough to let her melt.

The walls around you then were cold and stone and it was always noisy. There are stitches down your centreline, anticlockwise spirals, galaxies that bled away. They found Dolly’s cadaver, asked you questions, you told them what they needed to know. You kept the eyes to yourself and conversed a little every night, heart-to-eye. She spoke her first words.