When a girl is born,
layers of her soul are stripped off
and sent into the atmosphere.

The lady-shaped shadows
flutter out into tailors’ workshops
and textile factories, into

closets and shops
where garments dangle, bodiless
skins. Like dress patterns,

the cross-sections of soul
crinkle as they meet fabric, pressing
themselves into being.

There comes a time
in a girl’s life when a gown is needed.
She will be married,

or will attend a grand
dance or party. There is only one dress
for her, and it waits

for her to select it, to
occupy its fabric as muscles stretch flesh.
If she chooses the right

dress, that one dress
lined with her soul, she will know it
by her anatomy’s instant

and perfect alignment.
She will know that she has been formed
in order to fill it out

Never was the land together,
cohesive, an uninterrupted mass
of soil, rock, sand, grass
all bound in a harmonious package, leather
spread-eagled in one faultless piece.
Always were places disparate.
Sky unbroken, but land split
and ponded, rivered. Water reached
out from every fissure, issuing
lacklessly. The ground’s appendages
multiplied, fresh edges
made into shores and ocean chewing
into them eagerly. In the beginning,
this wasn’t a big problem for
people. They swam well, explored
by boat. At length, the constant crossing
of distances somehow seeped
into their bodies, their cores. They’d say,
“It can’t have always been this way,”
and dream of land gathered up in a heap.

My first time on a plane,
I look out the plexiglass
pane of the window, see
the grid of fields beneath.
The only sense I can make
of the latticed land: that here
are the United States, shaded
and flat as they are on a map.
Rosy brown, green, taupe
patches far below do resemble
cartoony illustrations of
countries, cities inserted
cleanly into regions
like toothpicks into bread.

Everyday I rewrite her name across my ribcage
so that those who wish to break my heart
will know who to answer to later
She has no idea that I’ve taught my tongue to make pennies,
and every time our mouths are to meet
I will slip coins to the back of her throat and make wishes

Thin oil for the cold car.
Paint peeling off the Subaru.
Leaves on the windshield wipers,
chocks behind the wheels.