Carol Smallwood

We Are Energy

Energy can’t be created or destroyed–only transformed;
constantly changing, everything is energy since the Big Bang:
energy and matter are the same the documentary informed.
Energy can’t be created or destroyed–only transformed
which is something one wouldn’t think could be performed
so I won’t try and convince you it’s true by a long harangue.
Energy can’t be created or destroyed–only transformed;
constantly changing, everything is energy since the Big Bang.

Raggedy Ann

Raggedy Ann, 33 inches of cloth, stuffing, yarn, black button eyes,
wears a blue flowered dress with an almost invisible 3-corner tear;
I Love You over her heart is still bright red as the heart that frames it;
the elastic near the wrists in both sleeves no longer holds

She has a large red triangle nose; her striped legs in black boots.
The cloth under her dress doesn’t match her faded face and arms but her
red hair now the shade of rust is as full, messy, of different lengths;
her arms and legs drape all directions in unlady like sprawls

Different from my hardbody dolls, I keep her separate out of any sun
and just noticed that her stitches run vertical in one line down her back—
mine run horizontal in two in the front. She once wore a white apron but it
must’ve gotten untied

Raggedy Ann, 33 inches of cloth, stuffing, yarn, black button eyes
wears a blue flowered dress with an almost invisible 3-corner tear

Carol Smallwood co-edited Women on Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching (McFarland, 2012) on the list of “Best Books for Writers” by Poets & Writers Magazine; Women Writing on Family: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing (Key Publishing House, 2012); Compartments: Poems on Nature, Femininity, and Other Realms (Anaphora Literary Press, 2011) received a Pushcart nomination. Carol has founded, supports humane societies.