dead girls’ dresses, I wore dresses I found
on the shore, in now-empty homes
I wore the sun
I wore the muddy water that carried my neighbor’s bodies
I wore the boat that rose up to become a mountain
I wore the bodies of beached dolphins
I wore washed up Chinese newspapers
I wore melon crates
I wore a government hand-out blanket
I wore the unclaimed backpack of an elementary school boy
I wore my great grandmother’s lost tablet
I wore the names of my classmates, etched in my arm
I wore altars to washed away gods
I wore a uniform from another city
I wore my father
I wore the smile expected of daughters
I wore the dead girls whose dresses I stole
I wore the kappa I sometimes feel against my ankle,
trying to pull me into the water
I wore driftwood
I wore a new gospel in my shoes
and got dressed for the ocean.