There's a line in the dirt between your yard and mine Drawn by a surveyor in nineteen-ninety-nine For twenty-seven years it held the peace just fine Until your tomatoes crossed the fence line Three inches — maybe four But four inches of tomato is a territorial war And I measured from my side, you measured from yours And somehow we're both right, which means we're keeping score Don't you cross that fence line Where the property ends, the principle begins I've got the deed, the survey, and the moral high ground Don't you cross that fence line Three inches of earth shouldn't matter this much But three inches is everything when pride is in the clutch You called a surveyor — fine, I called one too Mine says it's here, yours says it's moved a foot or two We've got two professionals and two professional opinions And a six-inch strip of earth that's become the last dominion I trimmed your hedge — the part that overhangs my air You said "that hedge was fine," I said "it wasn't over there" You said "where?" I said "there" — we pointed at the same place Two grown men arguing about three feet of space Don't you cross that fence line Where the hedgerow ends, the lawyers start I'll sit right here with my wine and my survey chart Don't you cross that fence line We'll argue till the county weighs in on the matter Two stubborn men, one fence, and it's the fence that doesn't shatter My father had a neighbor — same dispute, same fence They argued for eleven years at considerable expense Then one day they looked up and realized neither one Remembered where the line was when the arguing begun The fence had moved three times The surveys all said different things And the strip of land they'd fought about Belonged to the county all along So here we are, two men, one fence A six-inch mystery of no consequence Your tomatoes are delicious, by the way — I tried one It fell on my side, so legally, I'd won (That's not how property law works) I brought you a plate of them — with salt You brought me back zucchini — as a peace assault We stood there at the fence, the one we'd fought about And talked about our kids and what the Hendersons were doing with their sprout The fence line, the fence line Where neighbors become neighbors over time The line's still there — we just stopped pretending it's a shrine It's just the fence line And the tomatoes are fine And we're fine On either side of the fence line You still think you're right about the three inches though (So do I)
