I recently went cycling around Fredrick, Maryland while visiting with my family there. On this ride I saw all of these great old hand laid mortar-less stone walls. Remnants of the Civil War, and what was once farmland, now somewhat returned to a natural state as part of Gambril State Park and the Appalchian trail program.

I was reminded of time that I had spent in South Carolina and Georgia, a part of America that still holds a grudge against General Sherman and his scorched earth military tactics. Most of this grudgery has been reduced to the form a t-shirt or trucker hat made in China. However, like the decrepit overgrown walls that stubbornly refuse to collapse in Maryland, Sherman left little behind him besides rows of headstones. This was a time of furious loss in our country where the horrors of war are scarred into the land.

The rotting teeth creep into this piece from a recurring nightmare that I have where my teeth come loose and begin to fall our of my face. I find this imagery fitting as it is symbolic of history and aging, of permanent loss and the roadmap of scars and wrinkles, literal or not, that weave our lives as Americans.