By: Carrie Farrar

The Periphery

It is not the unfurled highway we desire.

It is what slips beside it—

a red granary on a remote rise
already gone

before the eye can settle

my hands hold the wheel
but not the motion

carrion—again
and again

some in the lane
forcing correction

some at the edge
arranged

silence enters early

grain towers oxidized

a pale mare
unburdened

no rider

the map thins

only corvids
cutting the sky

and the cold arriving
without preface

a maple holding its flare
arterial
too vivid

then absence again

mile markers
unread

the road nearly emptied

except

a carriage

hooves striking the bridge
measured

circling

or I am

as the destination gathers
without warning

light caught in glass

everything prior
receding

not memory
not loss

but a thinning

the whole of it
unholding

into a shimmering vestige

The Median

there is a narrow strip
between directions

not meant for standing

grass pressed flat
by what has crossed
and not remained

I step there
briefly

traffic continuing
without witness

on either side

motion without arrival

glass shattered
into smaller decisions

sunlight caught
in each refusal

no one claims it

no one slows

I am visible
only as interruption

then not even that

sound passing through me
unchanged

as if I were never
in the way

Borrowed Horizon

the horizon tilts
slightly

enough to register
not enough to prove

I correct for it
in the body

a small leaning
no one else performs

the fields repeat
incorrectly

a copy of a copy
losing intention

fence posts stagger
their distance

refusing pattern

I count them anyway

lose count

begin again

the sky lowers
or I rise into it

either way
pressure accumulates

in the inner ear

a ringing
mistaken for silence

I open my mouth
to equalize

nothing releases

the line ahead
not straight

not curved

but failing

as if drawn
by an unsteady hand

I follow

because stopping
does not restore it

Survey Marker

a stake driven
into the ground

flagging
what cannot be seen

the boundary assumed

I stand near it
as if proximity
might clarify

but the land offers nothing

no seam
no shift in color

only the idea
of division

held in place
by insistence

wind moves through
without regard

the marker trembles
slightly

then steadies

as if agreeing
to remain

even without evidence

I walk on

carrying the line
as if it were real

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Carrie Farrar is a Los Angeles–based poet whose work explores perception, instability, and the quiet erosion of meaning. Her poems have appeared in various online literary journals.