oddly placed askew from the maple, closer to the house than it should be
or than design principles would recommend
invisible when I moved in
now under four years of leaf sediment, nature floats it to the surface
too small to burnpile well
it would only work as a hotdog warmer
in the place where most of us would put a firepit
but, to firecode best practice still too close by, sits the hole bored by the wild boar
working off steam from a fight with his lady
a few years ago
I was just getting diagnoses
severe pain
something very wrong
still eating frozen dinners
expensive
organic
unable to cook
no dexterity
no hands
trying to hang onto the bucking bronco of daily employment
the racket was awful
inhuman
after a rain
gate open
two boars
wandered in
turned yard upside down
like bulldozers
I felt scar/r/ed
trespassed
naive
on an island
where I didn’t know the rules
just like at work
honesty irrelevant
impossible to mow
if I could have afforded to anyhow
the yard has healed
last year I locked the gate tight
I watch the boars sometimes
hear them quietly
mamas grazing with babies each birth season
with their waggy tail squiggles
unselfconscious
unagendaed
like watching possums at night from the car I lived in in L.A.
they go about their business
it’s only been four years
since townfolk told me we just shoot boars here
make sausage
it’s true the sausage here is good
though the tiny smoker couldn’t make a go of it
closed last year
just as my body was desensitizing to meat
I don’t see the boars much now
nor deer
gate’s been open a few months
wonder what will happen when I plant those fruit trees back there
wonder if they’ll come sit by my firepit with me
