How ’bout you’re the fence and I’m last summer’s grass escaping
this year’s snow – soggy – dead – footprinted – parted
to make way for growth? How ’bout instead of preassembled
corner posts, the wet perimeter is your two feet and every one
of your spring toes? And if that’s so, it could be I am full
of chemicals from your stained polyester powder coating,
not to mention dog shits – mushrooms – ghosts of winter
haircuts twining round your rust-resistant screws.
Oh you, oh love, I dig your gate always ajar and cutting
off my stupid blades that get too long. Let’s leave
the batteries uncharged inside the lawn mower forever.
How ’bout I’m the mud and you’re the boundary shaping
a new equinox, your pickets and my yielding never
interrupting day and night, shadows meaning what we choose?
Thomas Mixon has fiction and poems published in or forthcoming from Rattle, Sundog Lit, At Length, and elsewhere. You can find him on Twitter @truckescaperamp.
