In town you seized at physical
sensation, sight freely swooping
away and down, or for a sweet
maternal whiff of cidering
apples and burning leaves.
Remember the anarchy of tangled
stripped treetops, strewn buts
of wood, and uphill, the faint vagaries
of a foothold? Then promptly after
nightfall, the celestial review.
In the country, the thought
of society charmed you. Learned or
ardent conversation in the corner booth,
an exotic supper removed
from the notion of appetite.
You pictured rows of lighted windows,
houses tight by shops. Geometric
pleasantries of the square-hemmed
garden with bench and book.
This is your private territory
but mine only at gunpoint.
In bumper years it barely yields
roots and stones. The hardscrabble
landscape of your impatience.