Wooden Heart (Poetry)

I’ve adopted from the Russian version
my own quaint cultural layers painted on
over-bright for the benefit of others
thin lacquered colours that disguise a range
of lesser selves stacked neat inside.

Breathing gaps between — small inventive spaces where
the guarded image blushes — blends
to a hundred variations on a smile
or fakes a vacant look that hides
true age in concentric rings...

The child held safe in there —
wooden at the very heart
the secret doll I cannot hope to share
and no one sees her simple face
she keeps her silence and
                                her innocence.