Postcards
I bought a thousand postcards.
They were all addressed to a woman named
Adeline Barret.
I wonder who she is and why so many people
wanted to show her new places.
I imagine a woman with wrinkles that look
like winding roads and rivers on a map.
I am stuck in the American Middle West,
in a home full of my parents’ antiques.
I look at Adeline Barret’s postcards
and feel the earth maps
growing on me.