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