Barbed wire dreams
snare the last hour
of rest: a rip, a tear,
a cold wire embrace.

As boys, we learned to
string wire, to use a
block and tackle to draw
barbed wire tight
until it rose from the ground
like a snake strike,
fanged and singing.

Staple it to cedar posts,
lash it to steel. At the
farm borders, “line fences”
where six hard strands
made for better neighbors.

One hunting season,
walking abreast across
a woody pasture with
my brothers, we flushed
deer toward the road.
A heavy doe missed
her jump,
landed in the wires.
Strands sang as she
scrabbled toward out.

We waited,
guns pointed away –
as patient as inmates
in their last years,
we waited.

In a few years, one
of us went to war,
one refused, and one
wasn’t old enough.
He stayed to farm.

Last winter, some hooligans
on snowmobiles cut
the fence to cut across
our fields to the lake.
My brother (the farmer)
sharpened two stakes and
set them in the trail.
A return will mean cut
tracks or worse.

It’s his place.
I’d do the same.