Ashley Inguanta delivers powerful, earned emotion in this brief poem on boundaries and love’s expansiveness.
—
County Line Poem
I love too many people, but I do not know how
to love too many people. That will be my downfall,
and let me tell you, as I walk down to the street
from my new country home, I understand
that we are all flawed, that the sunset cannot
save us from ourselves, from the way we love
and love and love and love.
Next door, an old man keeps his dog out.
The dog guards the driveway, the grass.
One street over, and the county line is drawn.
I wonder who in this holy world would dare
cross such a divide: Man and dog, woman
and road. The country is a new stretch
of peace and of open shortcomings. Here,
in this landscape, nothing can hide. Your life,
there, in front of you, saying “please” saying
“See me, I am here. I am the grass,
I am the hill,” and I want to know
what happens when Earth closes its eyes, when
it can no longer see the moon, but feel it–
like a loved one twirling, moving away, moving towards,
a reckless but steady orbit, a glow, a tug of wind.
***
Read Ashley Inguanta’s collaborative poem with Sheila Squillante.
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Photo by Fernando Krum/Flickr