Monday Morning Poem: “Fences”

Last updated on: October 1, 2018 at 6:53 am by Joe Puentes

Monday Morning Poem: “Fences” 2018-10-01T06:53:06-07:00 Joe Puentes

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Division is rampant in our culture today. We build fences all around us to prevent people from coming or going. None of us were created for isolation, but community.

Poem: “Fences”

I walk through my town and the palpating segments sliced into the fabric of our humanity are on full display. Space is at a premium and the touching of flesh against flesh is an unwanted leftover of waste and a time long since past.

The cataclysmic weaving of humanity is staved — the systems of wood, metal, and concrete prevent any mixing or kind gestures. And I see it being mimicked in my neighborhood , the open space of my soul.

I walk by my neighbor’s new fence, wanting to touch it to see if it’s real. With my fingertips stretched out to their limits—I run them along the fence’s jagged edges until it carves a canal into the flesh of my fingers.

I holler over and ask my neighbor for a bandage, but wood and metal stuff their ears. My eyes move along, blood trickling downward my fingers, until I become fixated on the pool of loneliness forming on the surface of the pavement.

I can’t help but raise the question out loud in my head, “Is my neighbor trying to keep me in or keep me out?”

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