SUBTRACTION (ATTIC NEWSPAPERS)

These pale brittles like instants
of elevation fall off their map

Structure pocks After a train
departs the courtyard rows

of abandoned suitcases lapse
And a man walks down the snowy

corridor where no one moves
except him covering absence

Remnant flutters beneath our
aerial A miniature survivor story

Gopher heads pop the insulated
yellow opening now to see these

paper bits embedded Nails as
survey-tags Our maps lose tracked

location One only secondary
structural task Releasing the beams

from their embedded time trek
I fold remaining newspapers

into a muffled ladder Climb
Then collapse my ladder

to a disappearing house Up
the gelid underside duration

tacks What suspends me
inside is not heat

__

HOUSE IGNITES

Where bitter sea dries inside match-
Box as Mouse scuds to his den
& Daughter flees her sparking perimeter—

Why go? Waves will only bend train
Tracks and rungs will light, fire
Themselves upward: then heat pump,
Woolen whistle, will black-
Blanket sea, pressing her
Skin into one crisp

Note: there was no train from
His house, so fumble, Mouse
Before you wade

                              delicately

                                              out—

____

"House Ignites" and "Subtraction" are from a series of poems considering the interconnections between location and time, physicality and structure.