It began innocently enough, a bonsai tree, 
a Chinese willow, 
a gift – did you know what was coming? – before we….. 
It became my sorrow 
in a way, though scaled down, one I tended with care, 
love even, to keep it alive should you….From there 

only a small step to fashion a doll's house 
where they might live happily, 
two people who looked the very models of us, 
and on a shelf a bonsai tree, 
a Chinese willow, as you might have guessed. 
How stiltedly we moved around that nest 

of rooms, each morning wearing the look 
of ones newly displaced, 
moved by a hand we did not see but who took 
the time to have us face 
a wall not of our choosing but candy striped 
like candy rock, our previous faces wiped 

clean of all expression. The smaller the better 
from then on in, 
a doll's house within a doll's house…..my matryoshka 
moment and such diminution 
thereafter, as when two opposing mirrors 
must face each other down a corridor 

of endless reflection, and so on and so on. 
Imagine how small 
we will be in the end (angels dancing on the head of a pin), 
hardly there at all, 
but still there, and one tending to a bonsai tree, 
a Chinese willow, to keep a sorrow alive for me.