Kimiko Hahn

from Toying

[Like Tiny Tears]

I am not plastic, in any sense of the word! No shiny hair painted on a shiny head! No tiny holes in the corner of my eyes! Like Tiny Tears I do have a hole for a mouth—who doesn’t! Like Tiny Tears, if someone pushes on my stomach, I cry! Who wouldn’t! Unlike Tiny Tears I don’t have rock-a-bye eyes! And unlike my younger cousin, I ended up with a kind of knock off who only drank and peed! Like that no-named doll, I have a hole for peeing, but not on my butt!

[Like Easy-Bake-Oven]

Like the Easy-Bake-Oven, I am a hot toy. But not for you. Like the Easy-Bake-Oven, I am easy. But, not for you! Like the original Easy-Bake-Oven, I am incandescent and pale yellow. Like the Easy-Bake-Oven inventor, I, too, feel inspired by New York street vendors roasting chestnuts. Unlike the Easy-Bake-Oven, I’ve never caused anything to be amputated. Except for you.

[Like Doll-E-Drink ‘n’ Wet Set’s miniature evenflo]

Like the Doll-E-Drink ‘n’ Wet Set’s miniature evenflo, I am small, too. And will never be completely

empty. Even if you—yes, you–don’t tilt me back upright.

Author: Kimiko Hahn

Kimiko Hahn is the author of eleven collections, most recently The Ghost Forest: new and selected poems. Her subjects range from identity to current events to science. In the new work, she continues to play with Eastern, Western and hybrid forms–and she invents new forms that pay homage to past writers. Among her honors is the 2023 recipient of the Ruth Lilly Prize for Lifetime Achievement from The Poetry Foundation and she is a Chancellor at the Academy of American Poets. Hahn teaches in the MFA Program for Creative Writing and Literary Translation at Queens College, City University of New York. She has recently been made NY State Poet laureate.

Plume: Issue #45 April 2015