Property Lines

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PROPERTY LINES


Time was two bushes could align 

to signify nothing other than themselves.


It’s effort to see with uninvested eyes, 

the field undivided and belonging to no one


but itself and the few trees of the field.       

Still, my daughter just ran through one 


with her kite and didn’t even trip. 

Last night, the deer worked down 


the blackberry hedge and didn’t balk 

when the clusters became the neighbor’s. 


Even twenty minutes down the road 

the geese arrow unphased ahead


as they North across the Tennessee-

Georgia border. Where else has familiarity 


lined our lives into forgetting 

that all of it’s ours or none of it is, 


and further, that we can stake our claim 

on both if there are no sides for choosing?

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