You Occupy the Field
by Kierstin Bridger

You with the tiny forward slash scar
marking your mustache
You with your camera stare like
an aspen eye

You with your
contrarian countenance squarely set
in highgloss portrait
a Bakken plain man profile
captured grit in megapixel rudd

          unlike the old west miners, gaunt with damp and dark
          ungrinned for the turn of the century smoke lens

You the root of all western destiny, manifest in hazel glare
Rough neck, stubble muzzle,
          chemical dust, oil soaked brim

Oppugn the plight of the jobless, not you sir.
You follow the work, angle the consequence later, smug in the now.

You Occupy the Field – Kierstin Bridger

Kierstin Bridger was the 2011 winner of the Mark Fischer Poetry Prize. You can find her additional award-winning poetry in the 2012 issue of Memoir (and) due out in June. Kierstin’s work can be found at Nail Polish Stories, a tiny and Colorful Literary Journal, Stripped: A Collection of Anonymous Flash Fiction from PS Books; a division of Philadelphia Stories, Smith Magazine’s 6 Words about Work, the Porter Gulch Review, Telluride Inside . . . and Out, and Bricolage. Bridger has forthcoming work in the May 2012 issue of Thrush Poetry Journal and the May issue of the Mountain Gazette. She is currently pursing her MFA at Pacific University.