Russell Edson has built me a small, square house. Its rafters meet
above my head like mathematic ribs. I have always lived inside it.
I’ve memorized its lines, spanned with feet and hands the lintels,
hips, the cantilever web. And sighted down the hanging beams and
measured pitch and plumb. In dreams, I nail the collar ties, match
strut for strut, and cut the coping joints. In dreams I built a second
small, square house—until the night I heard the house inhale. One
windless night, distinctly, it inhaled. Inhaled like an animal
inhales. Now I move through its chambers shoeless and alarmed. I
have always lived inside it. What sort of animal it is, I do not
know.