An architect doodles
on a blank matchbook cover.
The tiniest
skyscraper stands tall
inside a taller version
of itself. If
my mother kept
reproducing daughters
we could be
the Land O' Lakes butter girls,
or Russian nesting dolls.
We're no one's little matrons.
The album cover art
to Pink Floyd's Ummagumma
triggers flashbacks of 1969—
the year I learn to dance
to "Sugar, Sugar"
and two guys in identical suits walk
(with all of their reflections
of their former selves)
on the surface of the moon.
We watch it on TV
in our grandparents' basement
in Westwood. Or,
is it the great room
in their beach cottage
on the Vineyard?
It's her word against hers against mine
against the higher pitched voices
we used inside and outside
to sling our favorite slang at one another.
The Droste nurse offers you hot cocoa
to comfort a broken heart,
while a smaller one offers
a smaller you a smaller cup
and so on
till Escher tells everyone
to stop.
He never does.
A damselfly nymph
may resort to cannibalism.