The poem opens with a snow globe image: white flecks swirling past a window "after every upheaval." Something has been shaken, and the speaker is left watching the aftermath settle. The title suggests a small, enclosed world that gets disturbed again and again.
What follows is a quiet, slightly absurd attempt to cope. The speaker finds a pencil and starts a list of everywhere they've been, but the task swallows itself. Three notebooks go to the hiding places in a single childhood house, and the pencil will run out long before the list reaches the street. The speaker seems to see that memory is too big to capture this way.
The ending shifts to small physical details: hair growing under a hat, a pilot light burning "like an insomniac." Time keeps passing, and something keeps watch in the dark. The mood is wry, weary, and a little lonely, with a sense of stubborn persistence.