The doll her father
brought from Thailand
belongs to this room, a study
in patience.

This doll knows
how women with bound feet
kept time, measured hours
learning art of black widows
spinning intrigue, perfecting poison.

But this doll waits for nothing.  Dust
dulls her hair.  Her mouth,
sensually red,
never whispers secrets,
never eats,
never kisses.

But she, my sister,
she is not cloth
and wood, motionless
in his absence.

Her flesh dreams past
the black lacquer square
he places her on.

She is not made
to pose, to take casually
from the shelf.

She is not this doll,
patiently chaste.