Our house sits in a room with yellow walls
Inside another house
We are brittle and fragile
Some of us are missing our shoes
Warm hands hold us
Pose us
Pick up our teacups for us and put them to our lips
Tuck us into wooden beds at night

The front walls open us so she can look in
And we look out
To see this other house
The real one that we live in
A babushka doll of homes
And within we sit and wait to be a reflection
Of what this child sees in the outer shell
A mother in the bathtub and a father in the den
And a tiny working piano in the attic
Tiny is relative

Sometimes she forgets to sit us around the kitchen table
And we go hungry.

Words by Hannah Cockroft, art by Eloise Brenda

This article first appeared in print volume 88 edition 4 GIRL