Doll

Lesley Curwen

She fashions his trousers out of tweed scraps, toy shirt

from white Bri-Nylon, a shock of orange wool for hair.

Her foot jammed to the treadle, she turns curtain cloth

into doorstop snakes. When evening comes they slide

around the flat, cotton tongues tasting the air, black button

eyes winking Osram light. She rips a wedding veil apart

to make a knot of angels, stuffs them with Alsatian fur,

stitches the teeth wet red. They squat on window ledges

to keep watch. She constructs cats from velvet sleeves

and fish-skin, places them by each door to listen.

Each dusk we drink tomato soup and wait. Tonight

our snakes rise in hooded rage as footsteps are heard

outside. My mother takes a hatpin whose steel

is sharp as grief, points it at the doll’s cloth heart.

LESLEY CURWEN is a poet and broadcaster from Plymouth, UK. She has published three poetry collections and her poems have been nominated for Forward and Pushcart Prizes. She is a winner of the 2026 Live Canon pamphlet competition, and was placed third in the 2026 Magma Judge’s Prize. She often writes about trauma suffered by families and ecosystems.