Traveler's Monologue

I am a Maine farmhouse. A hunkering cape.
I am the farmhouse, haunted and haunting.
I am the armchair in the wood-stove room of the farmhouse, in whose crook
I once discovered the most complete of all moments,
tilting my head against the wing-backs.

I am the wall of snow, door-shaped in the doorframe.
I am the air that pocked the drift, then kept on blowing.

I am the grave of the livestock veterinarian who once lived in the farmhouse.
I am he, calling
his patients from the paddock.

I am the stonewall that partitioned the paddock.

I'm a sick sheep.
A horse with a gash in its mouth.


- Cassie Pruyn (from Border Crossing)

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