Painting by Elaine Brown Folgar
Fence
The air is scratchbelly dry,
the dry of a desert snake
that slithers in and out
of a fence whose slats
are so wide apart a small child could
walk through. Or did I mean
the truth? Did I mean the truth could
saunter through anytime and why
are we not watching? Not watching
the droughts get droughtier,
carrots and peapods pulled from
a cracking earth and splintering
like broken fingers on a bony hand held
up in this raspy-throated air.
I care, the owner of that hand says
croaky and thin. His words go crisp
and dim. It is late afternoon and the sun
really looks like it's going cold,
and it looks so much like the truth.
that we put on sweaters, build
fires, point our oil cars towards home.
Turn on, turn off the evening news,
it's really all the same. No carbon emissions
by sometime soon in the future, and then
Great news! Gas prices lowered and easier
to buy. Each story canceling
the one before it. Each story a snake slither
of lies and truth and lies again.
A cackle of crow flying low over
it all. And then, its tired screech,
thin and thin and gone.
