tissue

• if building were paper 


  The speaker suggests that if buildings were indeed constructed from paper, they would exhibit a sense of impermanence and fragility. The line “I might feel their drift” implies the ephemeral quality of such buildings, as they would be susceptible to the slightest movement or change.
• might fly our lives like paper kites, and then be caught by the wind and die


  simile of how our lives are controlled by money

  the poet references money and the economy drawing our attention to the fact that our lives are governed by items which are as delicate and fragile as a paper kite. It is something that could be easily destroyed yet our whole lives operate around it.
• smoothed and stroked 


  human life is only temporary but the repetition from line 11 reminds us that we are all part of a complex lasting family history
• from her 2006 collection
• written from the point of view of someone looking at the troubles of the modern world