Chicken Ponarat

How it pained me to see my friend bend her cloth dolly's arms backward at the elbows
Breaking the joints, surely, if the doll was even a little bit real
My shivers of distaste egged Susy Husa to tie the arms behind the doll's back and hang
her from the post at the corner of her bed...now it was torture, and i was just watching
I left for the bathroom, and when i returned, the doll had been untied and placed
on the bed with her knees bent in opposition to human nature, Susy staring me down,
unsure if I'd gone to tattle. "She's my Chicken Ponarat. I can play with her how i want."
was the line that ended that friendship. I pulled the cord coming from the doll's cloth side.
"MY NAME IS CHICKEN PONARAT. I LOVE YOU." the doll's chest whirred.
I asked Susy, whose name i loved because it rhymed like a cheerleader's,
if she knew that babies are born without kneecaps.
"are not" she retorted. "that's right" i lawyered, " they ARE NOT born with kneecaps and that's
why Shrinking Violet (i showed her the nametag by the pull ring) isn't crying."