Walking Fence

Many there are who don’t love a fence, the fence Robert Frost once walked in his thought when he couldn’t decide either/or about walls. Now I had a fence, a white wooden fence that I walked once, with grass on one side, and grass on the other, its paint scaling off, its leg-posts wobbly where water had bitten with the teeth of Wisconsin. When I dared its blunt balance with my thin-worn soles, I walked the white wobble for a hundred yards, but I fell on my belly like a sack on the fence, then slowly slid off like a sack on one grass, where, empty of air, I cried for air, but I could get breath enough for living and maybe more fencing only on coming dizzy near dying. That day I’d a bruise on my round of a belly to help me remember that walking fence is a serious business when you’re human and heavy, so let someone tell you who knows about fences, that if you don’t pick one grass over another, you’d better be ready for a bruise on the belly, a problem with breath, and some tears.

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