Fencing

FENCING

It costs little to get the business up 

off the ground, what with all the scrap

available on the side of the road

and the tools for the work being

few: a posthole digger and a secondhand 

hammer will do. After that, you stake

the corners, give up a couple long afternoons 

and some palm-skin, and—there you have it—

what’s out is something different than what’s 

in. But it’s the habit roots have of prying

under pickets, and the way the general ruckus

out there presses in to demand a lifetime

of consistent repair, not to mention

the many requisite reconfigurations

as the landscape shifts, and with it the stakes,

that makes fencing such an intensive

endeavor. It’s not hard, then, to see behind

the recent surge in electric collars, 

whole neighborhoods of us choosing instead 

to put up with the chafing as we stand 

at what we imagine to be the edge 

and howl at whatever threatens to batter 

what we imagine to be the barriers.