Lawnmower

my father’s hands
on the oak handle
push and pull
the rotary blade
back and forth
across the yard

one foot
on the metal deck
I take the grip
of coiled cord
and yank to start
the whirring blades

hands on the wheel
of the lawn tractor
with electric key
I steer around
patio, beds and trees

two men
with matching shirts
on zero-turn-radius machines
smooth the expanse
of sloping lawn

dappled green palimpsest
of crosshatched lines

 

 

Michael Lyle has always written, but he’s also been a producer/director at a television station, an English teacher and an ordained minister. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Canary, The Carolina Quarterly, Dappled Things, Euphony, Foliate Oak, The Hollins Critic, Mudfish, The Opiate, Pilgrimage, The Windhover and other magazines and journals. Michael’s chapbook The Everywhere of Light (Plan B Press) was published in 2018. He lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.  More about him at http://www.michaellylewriter.com and https://www.facebook.com/michaellylewriter.