I made a map of the county and shoebox houses on every road, oilcan museum and smaller box houses on the smaller map within. Cicada for the trolley kudzu’d in some hair. A Hotwheels on a cracker at the sardine-tin garage. I made a coffin for a sock I folded like a dunce. Dug a quarry and a blue-hole in the ridge, stolen backhoe in the deeps. Fake tree from a forest, guitar from a gourd, and from the constitution umpteen more. Tiny music in a hole-punch chad. I made my collapse, my fold, my own little elsewhere. Boat from bottlecap, flotilla from remote controls. A bandage from my pocket lint, cottonfields from quilts. And a zoo and an ark from a wayward bird. I wrote the county’s history on the heads of matches and at last I made a suitcase out of clay and packed my clay and took the census as I made my way out of town.

for W.C.