I know, I don’t look Jewish, but
my mother, Ruth Handler, was, so
maybe that explains my new obsession.
I’ve got my red string bracelet
on, just like Madonna, except mine’s
wrapped around my waist. You think
dolls can’t pray? If everything is One,
then so is plastic. Barbie is a spark of G-d,
just as much as Britney Spears. I was created
in your image, as you are in HaShem’s.
Why do kids love to torture me?
They tear my head off, melt me
in the microwave, the little Mengeles.
I guess someone bigger’s hurting them,
so it’s like play therapy. But trace that hurt
back to its source, it’s Ein Sof—the primal
wound of becoming. Cut off. Free will’s
a flimsy excuse. How much free will do
I have? It all depends on whose hands
I’m in. Before Barbies, there were rag dolls,
corn husk dolls, clay goddess figurines—
(me & my bazooms a corrupt remnant
of those ancient mysteries). If you keep
going back, through the primordial light
that always shines on us, even at night,
from the blast of creation—the universe
compressed to a point tinier than my pupil,
a spark of impenetrable darkness, my head perfectly
empty as the vacuum it emanates from . . .
Anyway, that’s what I like to think about,
when I’m not trying on new outfits.
Photo by Pete Lounsbury on Flickr
