Wish I had a better lawn back there.
This year. Lawn of the Year.
I gotta try something. The patches are bad.
Tony’s got a decent lawn.
It’s like a single perfect cemetery plot, his front lawn
—three by six—
no gravestone, just a lush five-foot tree
wearing an oversized Beatles wig,
looks like one of those dreadlocked dogs—
a puli mascot crowns Tony’s pristine lawn.
I carried ten rolls through the living room and kitchen
to get my ten by ten on the ground out back
and did it take?
In the yard behind the house
in the corner by the shed
where the grass has never grown, trying to find out why
I dug a spade into the soil and plunk
struck concrete six inches under.
A bunker no doubt
financed in part by a government grant in 1959—
a buried crypt from the fear of an earlier apocalypse
dug in the flip Beat spirit
of some groovy underground scene—
(still holding out for an invite to descend
into a Bucket of Blood coffee house
and read a poem in a turtleneck down there—)
Up above we live in hope and wonder
what size trunk of Heinz baked beans would it take
to survive in our backyard bunker from 1959 to today.
That’s a lot of finger snapping and a big equation.
But I digrass.
There’s no dispute: Tony’s lawn’s a puny masterpiece.
If only I knew how to say “puny frickin’ masterpiece”
in Portuguese. And: “Is April too early for a re-sod?”
How does a guy spend forty years—a career—at Toronto Works
and not learn English that isn’t cursing?
This year I monitor the situation.
I copy Tony—his lawn game.
He seeds. I seed.
He waters. I water.
Quit my job to spy on my neighbour all day for lawn tips.
Should really just learn Portuguese.