The Guinea Doll

He came back from New Guinea
after World War II and gave
his daughter, my wife, a doll.
Dark-complected, hand-sewn
from coarse trade cloth, a
rough-featured Raggedy Ann
with mitten hands and feet,
toting a baby in a back pouch,
meant for an island child,
presented half a world away.

The doll came with my wife
into our marriage and lolls
next to me on a tall bureau.
A painted eye has flaked away
and eighty years of dust
has accreted onto its body but
it holds it heritage intact.
Since we cannot give it back
to a culture much transformed,
we save it for the first girlchild
of an unwitting granddaughter.