When you walk among the bones of a chalk horse, you can’t see it’s a horse. When, on your knees, you swipe a rag and retrieve a soft furball of dread, shadow of the cat watching you, it doesn’t feel like history. A pine splinter lodges in a person who lodges in a hundred-year house on an desolate street, suspecting the future will forget this water boiling over leaves. This indoor plant and these ants careering over nobody’s feet. Downs, they’re called, the hills where you miss the dusty lines. All you know is you’re riding a message over a ridge in a dream.