best friends

and so they jumped

off the golden gate

knowing they'd meet again

somewhere

maybe in hell

maybe in a movie

or maybe in a book

like thelma and louise

they were outlaws

but just hadn't broken

any laws yet

except the unwritten law

which says

you must be good girls

you must be bland girls

you must be

life support systems

for the only thing you own

that really matters

and so they jumped

off the golden gate

leaving giant bras

and licorice cats

and fountain pens

and plastic dishes

and old old dolls

and mountains

of things behind them

their legacy of things collected

piled up around them

as the emptiness stayed

inside them...

* * * * * * *

Back in 2002, my friend Linda Sue,

who lives at the opposite end of

the country, and I exchanged a ton

of emails, playing with poetry, testing

our wings. We both bought and sold

things on ebay, like the things mentioned

in the poem and we were both inveterate

collectors of all manner of junk! Neither one

of us ever intended real suicide.

dolls

i like to look at

all the old dolls

with glassy eyes

and fixed expressions

pretty dolls

once loved

for their beauty

cold dolls

without life

they started out empty

but somehow

as the years went by

they absorbed pieces

of the souls

of the ones who

loved them

and now

deep inside them

hidden safe from human eyes

they guard

a spirit of their own

a composite

of the little girls

grown old

who had to leave them

behind...

* * * * * * *