From Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space, which will be published next month by Graywolf Press.

Some people say Tsukimi Ayano makes her life-sized dolls
out of loneliness. I don’t know what materials she uses—

foam, horsehair—or where the clothes come from, the hats.
She was born in Nagoro, moved away, came back

to a village with only thirty-some people living there.
The birds were pecking the vegetables in her father’s garden.

She made a scarecrow so like him the neighbors passing by said,
“You’re up early.”

That was the first doll.
…