I was off on my own painting job

An out-o-town, catch-the-bus, pain-in-the-arse

Sunday thing. ‘Perkies’ or ‘foreigners’, we call ‘em.

Desultorily staring out the window as we dropped

On Tregarth, and a clear-faced American, who I tried

My best to ignore. He sprayed himself around like

Glade: Alpine Spruce.

‘I come from Colorado!’ he said.

‘Oh yeah. Long way from home.’

‘Oh yeah! Tell me about it! This air is heavy, man,

Heavy.’ So he half-dragged me out of my morning

And I opened up a bit about me and him and here:

A half-grin, a Sunday thing, a ‘sort of . . . yeah’;

While my eye flicked over his shoulder,

Watching the old fences beside us, and

They kind of puzzled and bothered me, again.

They’re made of slate: flat rows of purple pales,

Yoked with number eight wire. Not quite wall,

Not quite fence, not quite anything

I could claim to have built

Or even have seen before.