Farrow

Like a crumbling sun
all but three spokes have fallen
leaving a broken ring
of black spotted red steel
affixed worm-eaten wood
            neglected to rot in the weather
left defenseless to time
abandoned in the fields
it once tilled
            [martyred]
                        overtaken by the wild
                        an icon of civilization
                        which has moved on
                        and of a family’s fortune
                        taken with it.
            I push the wheel over
watch it collapse back into the earth
with little to show it had been there
save for flakes of metal
            a fattened grub
                        burgundy stained splinters
I kick the carcass [the past]
Contemplating the hours to come
before I return to the city
that had encroached upon this life.

When not writing poetry or prose, Brandan Roberts (33) makes a living as a museum curator and an administrative specialist at the University of Maine at Augusta. He also tends to be working on his degree in ethnography and folklore. Brandan lives in Maine with his fiancée, daughter, silver pheasants, turtle, and four cats. www.bsroberts.com