Wednesday, December 18, 2013

CHRISTMAS DOLLS

by Earl J. Wilcox


 Cartoon by Jeff Stahler.


For Christmas, I want my own Ted Cruz
bobble-head, stolid from the neck down,

feet planted firmly toward the right ventricle
of our hemisphere---slicked down, cropped

hair flat atop a head jerking up and down—
erratic rhythm, so wobbly my Cruz doll

makes me dizzy watching it teeter and totter
smirking its fake, fixed smile, the way all

bobble-head dolls carry on. Aloof, my doll
hunkers on a top shelf in a store with metal bats,

acrid-smelling leather gloves, bobble-heads
Rush and Rand and Sarah and Michele. Bob on.


Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to TheNew Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.