Likenesses

from “Likenesses”

When he is dead, a man in a

bathing suit looks most like a little boy.

A woman in a bathing suit

looks like a woman, unless she is quite

thin, in which case she looks like a little boy.

A little girl in a sundress looks like a little boy

in a sundress. Her mouth is a cold oval, as cold

as a strawberry. When dead, a robin redbreast

looks like a little girl, while it goes without

saying that Robin Hood looks like a boy.

The snowfield cresting the mountain looks

like a little girl sleeping on the mountain.

The pines, boys right before they disappear

into men with cold faces who carry hatchets.

Just before it dies, a car looks like a teenager, but only

if it was built before the ’90s. After that, cars look like women.