THE TIN DOLLHOUSE

by Lorri Ventura


Life never changes
Inside the tin dollhouse.
Mommy stands in the kitchen,
Eternally offering lunchboxes
To her two smiling children,
Permanently clad in their best school clothes.
She does not have to fear
That her beloved babies
Will be shot in their classrooms.

Daddy poses forever
On the kelly-green metal lawn,
Attached to the hose he aims
At the ever-blooming zinnias
Painted along the house’s side.
He does not worry that unrestrained 
Expulsion of pollutants
Will contaminate his garden,
The unending stream of water,
Gushing from his hose,
Or the air he breathes.

A plastic woman walks her silicone dog
Past the tin dollhouse
With no concerns that a government
Will steal her reproductive rights,
Persecute her for the color of her skin,
For whom she loves,
Or how she worships.

Leaning against a doorway
Beyond the tin dollhouse
A mother watches her little girl,
Crouched on the floor,
Peering into each miniature room.
She sighs softly
And wishes her daughter’s world were as safe and just
As the one embodied by her toy


* * * * *

Lorri Ventura is a retired special education administrator living in Massachusetts. She is new to poetry-writing. Her poems have been featured in several anthologies, in Red Eft Journal, and in Quabbin Quills. She is a two-time winner of Writing In A Woman's Voice's Moon Prize.