A Question of Medians

A Question of Medians

Before we were here they stabbed 27

like a bayonet through the frayed fringe 

of the battlefield, left behind 

a vine of withered Georgia towns 

dangling like drought peaches 

from an asphalt stem: Rossville, 

Chickamauga, Rock Spring, Lafayette.

The county mows the median 

once, at most, a month, 

but the municipalities keep theirs

tight and low, so much so 

that were you not from here 

you might still drive through 

without a map, and—using only

the length of wheatgrass

as a reference—need no other sign

to know the thresholds of your goings,

what’s between and unincorporated

always the thing that grows,

flowers, goes on growing.