Survey

The men out here,
staking the land,
with their tripods and tools
of strangulation,
I mean triangulation.

With their calluses and salt,
jackets the color of autumn husks.
Trucks cut out, along the roads
with the hazards on, before the dawn.
Did they rise alone, take time
for coffee or time for none?
Who loves the man who levels the wild?
Can he love himself?

Can he find some warmth
to sew into his pockets,
meeting his knuckles every time
he balls his fists, every time
they come up empty.

---

Elizabeth Joy Levinson is a biology teacher in Chicago. Her work has been published in Whale Road Review, SWWIM, Cobra Milk, Anti-Heroin Chic, and others. The author of two chapbooks, As Wild Animals (Dancing Girl Press) and Running Aground (Finishing Line Press), her first full length collection, Uncomfortable Ecologies, was published in July, 2023 with Unsolicited Press.