By Lauren Hilger

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.

• Living

Poet Bio

Lauren Hilger (she/her) earned a BA from New York University and an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is the author of Lady Be Good (CCM, 2016) and Morality Play (Poetry Northwest Editions, 2022). Her work has appeared in BOMB, Harvard Review, The Kenyon Review, The Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. Since 2016, she has hosted a monthly workshop and reading series at FRIEDAcommunity in Philadelphia. She serves as a poetry editor for No Tokens. See More By This Poet

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