Daisy is my girl,
but she is gone.
One day,
her heart desired
a well-earned rest,
so her skin turned pale
and her limbs grew still—
like mine.
As I looked up at her in bed,
I saw that her eyes were like mine,
too.
Ever looking onwards,
quiet, frosted glass.

I’d always felt quite strongly
that Daisy’s maker had done
a beautiful job on her.
Her mother had designed
the most wonderful lips
with gentle curves, a cherub’s bow,
pink and pretty.
Her father had wefted the most
wonderful, springy curls
that sat like silk
atop her head.
Both of them had sewn her up
in bows and dainty pearls,
and often times,
I got to match.
How lucky I was back then!

I waited for her to play with me
again,
but her alabaster hands
never moved.
I was patient,
for I loved her most dearly,
and knew of our mutual
weakness.
I knew she was fragile
like an automaton
of bisque and clockwork,
clanking away
on a music box.

You might think a girl like me
would long for the life
of an automaton,
but no,
I never did.
They sparked and moved
with the twist of a copper key,
but only ever
for a little while.
Inevitably,
the clock parts would always fail.
Daisy was no different,
I suppose.

They pried me from her arms,
sobbing and wailing
above the bed.
My porcelain teeth all rattled,
no words escaping my mouth.
I could not speak,
but when Daisy’s heart
went to sleep,
I wished for but a sound.
I could not tell them
to put me back,
to let me rest
beside my girl.

I would go with her if I could.
I am sure she sits
in great impatience,
waiting for me to arrive
at her latest garden tea.
She would be the same as she’d been,
only brighter
and fresh from the box,
as I’d once been.
A princess
in blue eyelets,
laughing out white petals.

We would have been happy together
and I’d have waited
with her until
her parents joined us,
too.
Can you hear me,
Frau Hoffstein?
You must turn back the clock
and send me from this earth,
alongside
your precious Daisy!

I could have been her
chaperone,
keeping care over
chokolade and scones
forever.
For as long as her
dancing mind desired.
Even if she left to play
with the other girls,
who could run and leap
and twirl,
so much unlike me,
I’d still smile on
in gratitude,
that she would still be
mine.

But her mother
locked me up instead,
tossed into the attic
with the old crochet
and the dustballs.
I always hated the smell,
knowing the scent
of oldness
far too well,
despite having a
ceramic nose, myself.

I was in a box
for ten long years.
I looked only at the lid
as day and night
blurred into one.
I could only dream of Daisy
returning to release me
from my wood trunk
prison.
It would be Christmas again,
tinsel in her eyes
and the overwhelming joy
in my chest.

I’d first come to her on Christmas,
when the year was
1876.
I know for a fact
it was my happiest Christmas
ever spent
in Thuringia, Germany.
Nothing could ever
surpass it.

My girl never came back
to get me—
and I knew she could not.
I could only pray
that her far-away travels
were not so lonely
without me.
Who would she whisper
her secrets to?

I remained in my coffin
until 1886,
when they must have
remembered—
if only for a moment—
that Daisy loved me
once.
It was the missus who
trapped me
and the missus who
freed me,
eyes like silver moons
upon my face.
She’d been crying,
I knew,
for Daisy’s touch still hung
to the musty folds
of my dress.

Daisy was hers,
and I was Daisy’s,
and my name was Daisy,
too.
A doll for a girl,
named after that girl,
so they called me
‘Daisy Two.’
You can read such words
on the back of my neck,
where they stamped
when I was made.

I thought that Frau Hoffstein
might keep me,
to help her remember
her love.
But love hurts
hard sometimes,
and she only wanted
to forget.
The woman wrapped me
in kitchen linens,
waiting until the birthday,
to shove me in hand
of the youngest
living cousin.
The Frankfurt cousin,
with coiled locks
and a face of
sun-gilt freckles.

As she unwrapped me,
I attempted to exude
the most welcoming
mood I could muster—
I did not want
to see the inside
of another box,
much less the bin
where they tossed out
the scraps.
I hoped she would not
pass me off
to the fire-haired twins
or the sticky-nosed sons.

The Frankfurt girl,
who I came to know
as ‘Anna,’
had horizons
in her veins
and chose in an instant
to love me.
I tried to do the same,
but my heart
was still locked up
in the Hoffstein’s attic,
beating on only
for Daisy.
Of Anna I was always proud,
of the way she grew
and blossomed,
but even then
she was not mine.
I still gave her
my everything,
as she deserved.

A good girl—
a better woman.
Her workmanship
was even finer than Daisy’s,
for she never broke down
or required repairs.
I wondered if she’d been
made from wax,
with her luminescent skin
and face that never wrinkled.
I sat before before her mirror
between comb
and gilded hairbrush.

When Anna had to go,
she left me
to visit Daisy.
Just as before,
I was not invited.
“Take me with you!”
I wanted to scream.
Were we not close companions
for the brunt of your
earthly being?
I am sure that I
am not so large
as to weigh down the luggage
hauled into Heaven.
There is surely a baggage check
before the Pearly Gates,
where bellhops wear white
and prance like leaves
in the wind.
I’m sure that the bellhops
would let me in!

From Anna I went
to her daughter,
then on to Anna’s daughter’s
daughter,
to the niece,
then the cousin,
and the boy next door.
Good hearts
and fond faces,
I came to know them all.

But they all had to go
where Daisy had gone,
to a place where
I could not follow.
As time shudders on
and I sit here,
unmoving,
I remind myself
I am all that remains
of Daisy
in this world,
and live on I must
to keep her alive.


© Katherine Steffeter