The Last Gate

His hat remains on the peg, rain-dark at the brim, a pale line where the sun

He walked the fence at evening, not because the wire had changed, but because wind, cattle,

He read weather in swallows, in the ache of one knee, in cattle turning backs to rain.

Mud dried on the boots in maps of the north field. One lace had been knotted twice.

There's a song that knows more about your life than your therapist.

Time takes the things you thought were permanent.