“Guardian” by Karina Borowicz

A tiny animal kept close to me on a string.
Warm and precious wool, a little black lamb whose face
is a miniature universe.  Then the dream
shifts, I'm walking along my childhood beach
and there's a doll's arm in a nest of seaweed,
a leg pokes from the parted mouth of a blue
quahog shell.  Keep walking.  A doll's red-cheeked
face, golden curls tumbling in the foam
that pumps in and out at the shore like the edge
of a huge heart.  But it's not up to me to put
the doll together.  It's understood:  I'm here to guard
separation, preside over the widening drift.