mountain winds leave layers of chalk dust. every day the same water is used to wash dishes, clothes, tile floors, and courtyards. majestic cypress trees grow straight up from dry fields into sky. walking there every day I see the same naked rubber doll hanging from an olive branch. no one seems to know why and no one takes it down. green ooze from hollow sockets stain the pitted rubber body

knowing almost nothing about older people, even less about the young, I venture to guess the form a prayer can take. I’ve seen torn white strips from children’s clothing tied to a bush on mountain top close to the panagia, the virgin mary revered in small alcoves, large gold churches. I’ve seen life size beeswax baby dolls in monastery where nuns walk with continuous homage and always the olive tree branches attached on doors. I’ve seen rows of large beeswax legs the nuns make and sell to sustain their way of giving hope

from my top porch I watch her hang clothes on a rope tied between tree and house, chickens pecking by her feet. like most old women she wears black except her brown men’s socks and her floppy slippers. everywhere I look there are olive trees, chairs underneath, tiny bugs mating and there in the middle of her tree hangs another rubber doll. I pray the doll gets to heaven or comes back to life while going through a large canvas bin at a used clothing store I pick up a naked rubber doll with matted blond hair, blue staring plastic eyes