The things that start with one loose rock

like avalanches,
or your husband taking apart the fireplace:
Howard Carter excavating the livingroom,
finding the dust and concrete trash
that the men who made this place stashed
there, forty-one years ago.

And you know he will put it all back together,
the rocks and bricks and mortar.
And he'll make it even better
with intake fan and register,
so the wood-burning stove will have lungs
to breath out its domestic fire.

But while the bricks and rocks lay
on the carpet, wait to be put back in place,
you think of the one loose rock
that led to this, and the loose rocks that have led
to avalanches, to falling cathedrals and towers,
to tumbling unstoppable ruin.