Mowing
This morning, my friend Reid told me
he takes two runs now at mowing his yard,
doesn’t feel like knocking it out
in one long pass like he used to.
And the thing is, I dreamed last night
I was mowing a vast field—
no woods or creeks, no houses or fences
to frame the work, give it an end.
On the street out front, cars plow the heat,
one after the other. I’m listening
to A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, and I’m sorry
for all my mowing, sorry for Reid’s.
Always, this mowing, while the moon
and raccoons and armadillos
own the night, and catfish gill and fin
at the river’s muddy bottom, whiskered
and white-bellied, cool and silent.
It’s Monday, the 23rd of August. I’m afraid
of dying with regrets.
I’m thinking of rain
and the river—its deep channel
along the far bank, the catfish down there.
Justin Hunt grew up in rural Kansas and lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. His work appears in Five Points, Barrow Street, New Ohio Review, American Literary Review, The Journal, and many other journals. He is currently working on a debut poetry collection.
Header photo by Albrecht Fietz, courtesy Pixabay.
