Some girls collect stiff dolls or tea cups or acrobatic hearts.
She collects boats. Keeps them lined up along her crooked
shore. Strokes their metal bellies, their wooden spines.
Picks at their salty paint. Each boat is named for something
lost.

Recess. Blue Blanket. Good Morning. Lassie the Fish. Greg.

She has never taken them out on the water. She is terrified
of whales. She instead sits by their side. Waxes their necks.
Reads poems about oceans. Lullabies them with the crest
and trough of her breath. But today she has decided how to
love them.

She will gather twine and cable. Gather wrench and ratchet.
She will snap planks, rip sails, smash open their use. Paste
their shoulder blades together with sap and brine. Construct
a night sized sculpture from their beauty. They will never
drift. They will never, ever drift away.