The Arborists studies paper ephemera-the notes, letters, and artwork that particular lives leave behind; and also the sensory ephemera of a life-the taste of pie, the depths of flowers. The book visits with family and friends, "our chairs blipping their white seats / like tabs on a chart," and wants to know what "map we would make / if you attached a flame to us and filmed us in the dark." In The Arborists, hornets eat the wood of the house while...