Lady Pygmalion
       

I made you in my image, curio,
old-fashioned unsmiling face
inside a ring of seashells,
something to gaze at when I got lonely

or the sunset was bland. You were
barnacle covered and moss laden
but smelled so sweet, the sea gone bad
and then good. Not fish,

but coconut-slathered skin in sun,
plus salt. Your hat never shaded your face
quite right. I remade you, three
dimensions, colored in the cheekbones

and did a spot-check. Your facial features
mimicked mine, the ratio of nose line
to eye socket. Your torso archaic
when I took down the head

to shine the eyeballs, which went dull
with dust every month. Only paste and oats
behind them. You were agreeable.
When you vanished, the mirror said

I was a sack tied loosely to a stake,
sleeves coming apart at the seams,
straw ripe for bird beaks.
Their precarious nests in the eaves,

a single abandoned blue egg. A bird
on the sidewalk that seemed injured
but flew away fine. I don't need
to know what kind it was (pigeon? dove?)

when it's gone anyway. Small orb
wrapped in tinsel and tape,
little creature inside scratching
something I can't understand.

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Copyright © 2020 Lisa Ampleman All rights reserved
from Romances
LSU Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission