The scream of the avant-garde

withers into whispers and coughs.

Pop-star billionaires shrill

about failed or misplaced puberties.

We distance ourselves from culture

and focus on the border between

garden and runaway forest.

This isn’t the pastoral moment

with its critique of urban lust.

Our modest acreage supports

windy gestures that some day

will carry us over the blue line

of mountains that some people think

marks the boundary of this world.

The performers thrust their doughy

but expensive breasts at us.

Our lack of response renders us

too innocent to further comment

on the cunning of digital colors

so we relax backwards into self

and yank the weeds from flower beds

too small to mistake for graves.

William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has taught at several colleges and universities. His most recent book of poetry is Cloud Mountain (2024). His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in many journals.