Doll Hair

I don’t remember
a thing about his looks.
Came in the night,
he tore the hair
from the Barbie doll
as it lay beside me.

The plucky sound,
like pulling a sucker
off its stick,
distracted me from him,
his heaviness and sweat.

My arms were caught
under my back. My right
cheek, jaw and ear
pinned to the carpet
under the sticky forehead
he had pressed
against my left temple.

That’s how I saw my
doll on her back,
head twisted and
hair torn in clumps,
same as me.

He rolled his forehead
from coarse hair to nose
on the side of my face
as if he were trying
to stand on his head.

He didn’t.

And then a wet mule sound,
or a pig, one of those boars
like in a story, and
his heavy hot body was
deflated.

He pushed himself off
still clutching my doll.
Her soft plastic face
smashed against the floor
rose with him, leaving a
pile of useless
yellow hair.