samantha, building land plots

trains hold ribbons to their backs,

drag them through your scoured-out

city, trailing their wax and filament

into arcs, because trains don’t move

obtuse. arcs that collect, like families,

families that are just shapes you can

use to make chairs face every person

in a room. your family told me they

always wanted a creek—as if it could

be cut by the topographer into some

portioned slices, hopefully as fair as a

tangerine, with tags hung to note that

it was "Their Name’s Creek." but I

know it’s normal to make home into

that which will only ever be yours,

like the yellow-throated warbler who

somehow eats small blue moths at

the edge of your pool, or the train that

never really comes back, just endlessly

east. it moves smoothly behind the

grey walls, past the cherry laurels, away

from your bed and into a small arc of

sound that could fill a bowl but not a

plate, a river bed but not a river, a house

but not a house that is only ever yours.