Easement
My dairy land was shattered and the pieces sold for silver. The grazing field is now a grocery store, the barn a memorial park for veterans. I milked my cows during the war, gave milk away to children, so I feel myself included in all that, but I wish it would disappear. Go back.
It started slowly, with neighbors. I despise neighbors, how close they’ve come. If you have to cross your neighbor’s orchard to reach your own, your land is an awful shape. Someone has cut it. Clean.
Soon all we had left was the dwelling place, and a strip of land where muscadines tangled with other vines. They are so sour, their skins so tough. The birds who get through that skin pass small seeds. Since they are everywhere, you can’t get rid of them.
We did not keep it up. How many times did I tell the children? We got this by a stroke of luck, and to luck it might return. Don’t fold it into the shape of a paper airplane. Don’t bet it on a game of chance or skill. Don’t draw it or dream about it. Learn to love the work.
Nothing is mine now. I haunt the dairy aisle at the grocery store when I feel like it, get behind folks and touch them with my cold fingers. Serves them right. Nothing is mine, but I can walk all over it.
IVY GRIMES lives in Georgia, and her work has appeared in The Baffler, Maudlin House, hex, ergot., Ligeia, Not My Style, Cold Signal, and elsewhere. Her collection, Glass Stories, is available from Grimscribe Press.