Fence: a Definition
1. A barrier intended to prevent escape
or intrusion or to mark a boundary,
the T-post-and-hogwire our neighbor put up
flush against the common one-lane road –
no shoulder, no turnouts. (If you break
down, you’re up against the fence.)
2. a receiver of stolen goods, one of those
faceless men who, in the dark of night,
could unload pickups full of our neighbor’s
stereo and hard-drive and everything else
that makes life worthwhile. (He says,
That’s why we need the fence.)
3. as a verb, to ward off, as he hopes
to keep felons off his property.
(Let them leave us alone, he says,
and rip off people without fences.)
4. to practice fencing, to parry
arguments by shifting ground. (We need
a fence, he says, to hold what’s ours
together.)
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