Neil Kennedy

Miriam Mows the Lawn

I have come to Jonah and Miriam's house
because i love them and
because Thomas, their youngest son
dropped dead in the shower yesterday.

Thirty years old and half a country away,
Thomas' heart betrayed him
and his wife and two children
and his parents, Jonah sitting
at the kitchen table when I arrive.

"Ma's out mowing the lawn," he says.
Eyes nowhere. "You want a beer?"
Miriam is sixty six
and I call her 'ma'.
"Good day to mow," I counter. Weather.
Thomas is dead
and that will not change.

"Jonah," I start.
"Have a beer with me", he says.
Looks me in my eye.
"And you just keep calling me pa."

We have that beer. Miriam mows
the lawn and me and Jonah sit
in the kitchen. I am the same age as
Thomas is dead Thomas -

"She's been at that all day. That's her way
I suppose." Chuckles, looks me in my eye.
"Lawn can only get so short." We chuckle
some more, just a little. Enough.
We grow quiet and Miriam mows
the lawn. "You'll help carry my boy,
day after tomorrow?" Eyes nowhere.
"Yeah, pa. anything you need, you know -"

I step out back, wait for the corner
and Miriam turns, looks. Waves.
Mows the lawn.

Hack

I think, carpentry:
half-speed
with a fool's concentration,
pounding away at innocent wood,
beating the grace from it
in a vain attempt
to find the beauty within.

Or an amateur explorer:
ignorant and knee-deep
in unnecessary slashings,
frenzied machete cutting
through the living heart
of the thing that brought him.

Neil Kennedy writes: I'm living and working in eastern Canada, creeping up on 30, and waiting for my next cat. I've been writing for about a dozen years, off and on. I hang out in rec.arts.poems, and at a fine tavern called Doc Dylan's, and do my best to be nice at all times.