~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Luke Harvey

Common Field

Good fences make good

neighbors, but no fences make good

conversation about who mows what,

because with the easement

where it is, it makes more sense

that y’all take care of that strip,

which we’re okay with as long as you are,

and—not that it matters—

y’all know that it belongs

to us, and we could plant a garden

there if we wanted to.

No fences forces you

to confront how our lives

so intimately intersect in the field

we share, how between y’all,

us, and Eddie and Cathy on the hill,

we’re not as clearly defined

as we’d like to imagine,

how really—mid-conversation—

one might come to remember again

that none of us really

owns any of this anyway.

Luke Harvey lives in Chickamauga, Georgia, with his wife and daughter, where he works their homestead and teaches high school English. He holds a BA in English and an MA in Teaching, and he will graduate in August with his MFA from Seattle Pacific University. His poems have appeared in Ekstasis, The Write Launch, Better Than Starbucks, American Diversity Report, The North American Anglican, and elsewhere.