New Poetry by Deborah Davitt: inhuman nature & all too human dolls

​We've self-editing androids and abandoned dolls for you now in two new poems – Inhuman Nature and Dolls – from Deborah L. Davitt. Deborah was raised in Nevada, received her MA in English from Penn State, and currently lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband and son.  For more about her Rhysling-nominated poetry, short stories, and novels, please see www.edda-earth.com.

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Inhuman Nature

He had a laugh that everyone reviles –
the blank-eyed type that doesn’t touch the soul;
he pushed the loan papers across his desk,
and they prepared to sign their lives away.
 
They remembered the plastic of his smile
as they drove to their new home, wondering
what had taken from the man such a toll –
what had sent his humanity astray.
 
But as they enjoyed both their garden and
retirement, they sequestered that file
from their memory banks, deleted it whole, 
like the things their coworkers used to say.
 
For an android, it’s hardly denial –
editing themselves makes their lives a stroll.


Dolls

The grove of trees had been
popular among teens
as a place for necking
or smoking pot,
 
but now, hanging from tree limbs,
little cherub heads, dangling
from nooses of their own hair,
always smiling, always smiling.
 
With their broken eyes, they’re
always watching, always watching;
they see everything we do.
 
Made of plastic, made of china –
torn and ragged clothes;
arms missing, legs missing,
little naked torsos
clatter hollowly.
  
Each little ruined face
seems somehow individual;
each time we venture there,
the collection seems to have grown.
 
Always watching –
I look for faces that I know
– always smiling –
afraid to find my own.