If you go far enough back in my life’s tree,
You’ll see with each home I inhabited, I mowed.
Eight years old, pushing ol’ gassy up 83 degree hills
In cutoff t-shirts and 10 bucks a pop. Sweat on a promise:
Bag it in the front. Don’t mind about the back. Acorns
Popped like sling stones against my ankle. Cicadas ground
To paste. From the ground we grow, and to the ground we return.
I strung up a hammock between two trees and drank lemonade,
The dryads cultivating mushrooms. That old oak still grows
Thick with children.
I was a late mover-outer, Millennial with a trench coat (before
Columbine; before Matrix.) with that wan tinny I’m taking it back
Smirk as a twisted boy, I would mow like a minesweeper
In sandals and socks while mom worried I’d cut my toes off–
Bradley, Tom’s neighbor did that. Big toe off, pop, but I never
Saw him sway while standing: maybe he didn’t need it that much.
He never played basketball in the dark again. The ravages of war.
Modern Fantastic 