The Grey Hills of Oxford

Thirty-six-inch with several contusions, thirty-six-

Inch bald, slight wear on the right, thirty-six-inch

With a six-inch tear, thirty-six and evenly worded,

Thirty-six on its side, thirty-one with evenly spaced

Bald patches, larger with fist-sized threads, upright

With fist-sized treads, half-burned with the right side

Flattened, one rim with only a ripple of tread, two

Melded together, one mag wheel with a sliver

Of dark centre, three like links in a chain,

Three like leaking clay, one like a grey whale’s

Snout, two flattened whitewalls on top of three

Barely discernable tube-like shapes, several earth

Tones near a white crumb of tire, seven stacked

Like folded commas, two very grey, burned tire

Corpses, something like a tractor tire, bigger

Than the others and basking in the sun, upper-

Most on the tire pile, near the canyon walls.

Four tires like forgotten bobsleds at the bottom,

Several tires jutting out from the earth,

Several at the top disentangled, but not free,

Sitting on the earth, half immersed.

At a distance, tires lose their particularity,

Tires become brushstrokes, hills

Fading into sky.

Source: Expressway (Coach House Press, 2009)