Diagramming

The subject has a verb 
but there's protocol
to cover before you  
can properly apply it 
to an object. On the way, 
there are little eaves 
where you can tuck 
a modifier or adverb. 
On the way, you navigate
a multi-level house. 
There are low walls
which might separate 
a dog from its bark;  
the loveless salesman
in a story, from the giant 
insect into which he 
transforms upon waking.
A rabid mob roused 
to insurrection, from 
the logic of the law.
A few windows lean 
outward; prepositions 
as well as the occasional 
pronoun have been known 
to use them as slides
or escape hatches. 
War and peace, cake 
and pickles; diplomacy 
and treason. You make 
your way from one element 
to another, seeking a clear 
line against hockey sticks
and divisive indirection, 
out of the need to make 
sense of how exactly things 
relate to each other.