Pinocchio Bowling

Pinocchio Bowling - Vincent Zohar (Oak Park High School, Twelveth Grade)

A body decorated with paper mache,

Cardboard bones lined with newspaper muscles

Encapsulated in dried, crisp glue.

Acrylic skin outlining the figure

Simulating lard and skin and hue.

A kitschy proxy for a fragile brain of chinoiserie

Enraptured by the stretching horizon line,

Watching as it snaps and shoots into the ribcage

Colliding like a cannonball with the corrugated skeleton.

The torso concaves and the head whiplashes down,

Shattering the porcelain womb

As fragments of white shell and prawn colored roses disperse like confetti,

And the doll has now become a living party popper.

The remnants skid across the floor,

Tossing and tumbling against the racing concrete.

The scattered brain, connected by strained strings of blush,

Occupied by aftershock and roadburn,

Now blossom in wonder.

A churning curiosity for why

Its limbs cannot lift itself up.