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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.