A large white dollhouse
with green shutters
on a folk art pedestal
seduces her. Not

those shell-encrusted
parlor memorials, painting
of the Pilgrim Monument, replica
of a whaling vessel. She’s

a little embarrassed
to be still playing with dolls’
homes. Tiny artisans
and a beehive furnace

in a model
of a 19th-century glassmaking factory
could take her away
for a night or two.

Fear of heights gets no purchase
inside a life in miniature.