A light hum in my right ear. Circumscribed
world. As the climate changes the soil mantle
strips away. We pave over this. We take
a week by the sea the stitching long since

ripped. Betula—betulla—we say semida
when talking secret names. Metallic ribbon
wound round branches that no longer leaf.
Revealing bones of bedrock underneath

you return to silver rind canoes pushed
into the arctic. Viewed in time lapse only
the surface diminishes, crows in each frame
as tribes come and go. Herds come and go

acid groundwater penetrating along jointed
plains. As if through bracken we might find
a small pale land. The problem of the house
fatigues with moths pinned and spread, granite

to gravel, a series of birches and a vacant lot.
And then just one birch, scar tissue encaustic
as the low tones of a trombone push through
the gap. The shadow of birds flood out

a dark territory for the sea did not answer
the question of the bureau’s mirror eye.
Its inability to detect in weathering a conception
of dwelling without elegy. A mouthful of moths.