Exaptation
My doll had an exoskeleton
one could remove like a dress.
Inside, a baby with a ponytail and bow.
That doll had a thorax, it was easy.
You removed half of her,
a kind of leaf,
and there a bodied thing inside,
still in the process of speciating,
a vintage Barbie. It held medieval weight.
At the party, I walked in
as our childhood’s doll.
a pioneer in river boots,
Kirsten, the American Girl,
but as St. Lucia, a crown of ivy
unlit, flammable,
until I stood in that fire,
like the salt candle I lit to seem elsewhere
called Swedish dream fresh from the sea,
like the snow moon, bright as interior pineapple,
far-flung, shucked from shell.
Copyright Credit: Lauren Hilger, "Exaptation " from Morality Play. Copyright © 2022 by Lauren Hilger. Reprinted by permission of Poetry NW Editions.