It's a Small World

Midnight, Christmas Eve,
in the dark still silence
that brims the building
after the tourists
and the cleaners
and the music
are done for the day,
comes a rustling and a stirring
as hundreds of dolls
step out of their poses,
shake their hair,
blink eyes that have stayed open
all the long year.

They do not speak
in the single hour
allotted to them,
they who heard the same song
repeated over and over
as they danced their hearts out
for the customers.
Nor do they wish for light,
they who know each painted inch
of their clockwork world.

They step away from their windmills
and tulips and temples and jungles
to sit in one long line
by the water's edge,
small hand clasping small hand,
while those trapped overhead
in balloon or magic carpet
strain their ears
for the small bright splashes
of the penguins
entering the water,
the larger sounds
of a hippo cavorting.

(First published in Main Street Rag)