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Cowboy Poetry and Western Verse
Fencing with my Brother
Douglas Polk
a perfectionist all his life,
structure and order seemed to calm an inner strife,
a method for everything,
fence posts three paces apart,
dug to the bottom of the belt loop on your jeans,
the belt loop above the right front pocket,
starting in a corner one day fencing,
he went north,
and I went west,
the day long,
numerous the post holes dug,
I could tell something wrong at the end of the day,
but if he was bothered by something I did, I couldn't say,
after supper he disappeared,
then returned looking for blood,
my fence line was wrong,
the posts too far apart,
and also too long,
he implied I was too lazy to dig them right,
I told him to show me,
then we would fight,
back at the fence I stepped off the posts,
three paces each,
exactly,
dug to the bottom of the belt loop,
on my front right pocket,
every post the exact same height,
realizing immediately,
I began to laugh,
he was only five eleven,
and I six three,
that fence bothered him the rest of the spring and summer,
and even into the fall,
praying for bad weather,
with plenty of wire down,
he was hoping he could rebuild it,
and replace it, posts and all,
a perfectionist all his life.
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