Noah Leventhal

Cartography

The girl only answers impossible questions, like how much time there is.


There being an operative term for how much time there is.


Suddenly it occurs to the girl. The girl sees it there.


The girl sees it, so there it is.


There, the girl says, but I see only an acorn.


There being an operative term for why time is.


The girl sits there and waits for the acorn to become.


I am not so patient.


The girl sees the whole tree and pulls it from a twig.


In the dirt the girl sees it. The girl scratches it there: a to-scale blueprint of the house.


There being the operative term for why time knows why time is.


All three floors, clearly scratched in the dirt. Over there where the acorn has not yet become a tree.


Where the tree has not yet become a house.


There being the operative word for the ways in which time is earthly.


The girl looks at the tree and sees the acorn. The girl makes a world of her scratches in dirt.


The girl wipes it away and the house disappears.


The girl drops the acorn and the tree right there.


There being the operative word for where time is and what it came from.


Over there where a tree is scratched into the trunk-brown flesh of the acorn.


The girl drops time where the house was.

Noah Leventhal is.