First Remembrances - First Edit

[ChristopherSea]

I remember them then, though dimly.
They walked in silence eating plums
not because they were in love,
but because they felt nothing.

Some days she would strip
off her stockings, hanging them like severed legs across the door frame;
both of them knowing love was a dishonest word,
but wanting to be known.

In the mornings she drank coffee like water,
cleansing her throat with heat,
vainly seeking in the empty cup
some small sip of truth.

Shuffling back and forth across the threshold
I watched, transfixed by her steaming eyes.
I fed my plastic doll with tiny fingers,
tenderly stroking her black, untidy hair.

Hi beaufort,

Beautifully sad and a reality for many. It is usually a marriage of convenience for the sake of children that exist this way.

Although I like the opening stanza at lot, especially the way you set us up with the final line, I am not certain why you recall them dimly. I should think it would be the antithesis, vividly perhaps, as you seem to go on and demonstrate.

In the second stanza, I like that break after 'strip', but I might consider doing it again after 'legs' and 'love'. In the third, a break after 'cup' would leave the last couplet with a glaring 'empty/truth'. You don't have to confine yourself to that four line stanza count. On the other hand, I may just be an overly eager line dicer!

I assume that the narrator has the 'tiny fingers' and the 'doll'. She is recalling her parent's marriage dissolving or its thin existence. I am not certain why the doll is characterized as being 'plastic'. Yes, we all know that this is true, but little girls consider their dolls real. Here, it could be even more so, as a pretend companion or baby may provide escape and a sense of love that is absent. I am probably missing something.

Perhaps something is here to help with your next edit, should you decide to do so. Regardless of my comments, I thought this poem was remarkable. Thanks for sharing it./Chris