How nearly can I
inhabit someone
else’s body? I don’t
have any money.
Prostrate, scrolling
through other people’s
clothes, I’m wearing
the tearable pink dress
I met you in. It came
taped up in a box
that smelled like house
and once held water filters.
These truncated mannequins
I imagine angels appear as—
headless torsos, voices
emanating from necks—
scare me like you did.
Still I let divine will
fill me like a windsock,
commencing a delirious
motion. Now my love is a line
pulled by no current.
Thanks for your purchase!
wrote the woman in Queens
on scalloped cardstock.
Pulling her dress over
my head, light sieved
through sheer silk
and I saw the threads
binding my delight.
Copyright © 2025 by Erin Marie Lynch. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 12, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
