Survivor

Dollie was one of eight children Born in the early part of the twentieth century I met Dollie only through stories Dollie as a child had taken sick Grandmother was sure that the doctor Had given Dollie some bad medicine That caused her death. After Dollie died, she snipped a lock Of Dollies straight, pale hair, before burial And tied it with a bit of pink ribbon The hair stayed in the Bible, Smelling faintly of powder. It was dry as the prairie grass Where Dollie lived and died I used to wonder if Dollie still lay intact in her grave With long hair streaming about her I wondered if she missed the few inches Held in the pink ribbon; if she knew about that? The hair was the only thing left of her Except for the box of homemade dresses Made of cloth once sewed onto sacks of feed. Grandma kept the dresses close by, even at seventy I would always murmur That maybe they belonged in a museum But whenever we spoke of Dollie I just had to see the dresses again. It was our ceremony, together One by one, she'd let me look at each dress. I was astonished that the dresses Could still reach out from the past- Proof that Dollie really lived once. They must have been ironed Before they were put away They were still smooth and crisp looking Viewing the dresses was a sacrament. It seemed if there was any smidgen left of Dollie It had to be there in those dresses Since she wore them every day Maybe little fragments of her spirit transferred Into them, when she was very happy or very sad Perhaps someday some magic Might free her from the fabric again. The years went by and too soon My grandparents died; the dresses disappeared Probably into the trash can. They had no value to anyone else; too old, moth-eaten It seemed a sacrilege: I was the rightful heir The one appointed, trusted to carry on The memory of Dollie: But at least I still have the hair.