An old fencerow half a mile away—
barbed wire stapled to broken tree limbs
pushed back into the earth of their first birth.
This loose barrier doesn’t keep anything out anymore:
animals, humans, weeds—nothing. Everything
crosses over, under, around, or through it.
Nearby, rubber wheels grind twilight gravel into drifting
clouds, and pheasants cry from dusty ditches, a far
cry from their first homes by the Black Sea.
They were brought to America in the 1800s. They made it
into Iowa in 1910 when William Benton’s 2,000 captive
pheasants escaped from their pens after a windstorm.
Now a white bouquet of apple blossoms lights the valley
where deer trails part hairy prairie grasses
hiding scratchy hoops of wild berries.