It's A Tin Toy Cash Register Feeling Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

it's a tin toy cash register feeling
that starts ringing up in my dream
all the keys are bright red plastic

like they used to be and something-
almost a bicycle bell rings Christmasy
and true and the tin toy tray pops open.

it's true there's no money in the drawer.
we buried our gold long ago, sigh the miners.
I am lost.

how can I count the cost of
things with no price on them?
asks my sister

stacking the plastic oranges.

we munch on Sunday night chicken
playing bird lotto till the dawn
when I will

turn aside to other toys, perhaps-
coating the day with a thin wash of
basic Prang watercolours

while the dolls in pink eyelet
petticoats mourn-

mary angela douglas 2014