The Point

There’s a sense that what is left
is somehow more than what is left
off. That whatever remains must be
the point, like the point he carves
of each fencepost before driving them
into the frost-hardened dirt. Steam
streaming from his hands into the long
dawn light as he pulls off his gloves,
wipes the dust from his lips. That night,
face smeared across the bathroom
mirror, he’ll slowly undress, peeling
away the sweat-stiff shirt and jeans,
and with them the day, all its
gathered pain, each wince and hiss.
He’ll touch his body then, softly
testing it with the tips of his fingers,
pressing into the skin, the scars, as
though he were some not-yet-named
world. He’ll take off his wedding ring,
set it beside the sink. And then
the rest. All of it. Everything he can
be without – hair, tooth, hand, limb by
limb, scraping, scouring away, cutting
down, knowing he will find it, has
to find it, that pure thing that is left,
the sharp point of him, what he
is, just a little farther now, he thinks,
a little beneath, the water running
dark down the drain. In the morning
he’ll head back out before dawn,
a stack of new posts shuddering in
the truck. It’s just ahead, he can tell
and he stops, steps from the cab, here
where he left off. But there’s nothing.
No fence. No post. Nothing. Or not
quite nothing. A line of deep holes,
stretching off into the half-light, each
one perfectly round and full of water.