Words for Autumn 2019

Gnarly

Splitting 18" long rounds from a beetle-kill

pine tree we felled

so it wouldn't smash a shed

- with a borrowed splitter briggs and stratton

twenty-ton pressure

wedge on a piston push-rod

some rounds fall clean down split in two,

some tough and thready, knotty, full of frass and galleries, gnarly gnarly!

- my woman

she was sweet