By Moving I Remain–Jeff Burt

By Moving I Remain

 

My thighs make a swath

through the switches and bramble,

tugged, yanked, stuck,

as if this gnarled angry chaos

wanted to snare, entrap,

twirl and catch like barbed wire

curled around a heifer that dared

to batter the fence and zing

the staples shot out and the wire

recoiled and you find the hide

and stagnant hoof of the cow.

 

But I am too old to be stagnant.

I press forward to the yawning light

ahead, the red truck on the dirt road

waiting like a falling sun,

allowing the thorns their cotton twills,

the snags, pricked flesh,

worn patches a marker of pleasure.

By moving I remain.