Rebecca Pelky 

Mowing the Lawn 

Curled around myself I shuffle 
out of the shadowed glass door 
into overexposed August. 
For a moment my skin recalls 
the soothing cool incandescent interior 
of the clinic 
but summer presses me too close to her damp breast 
and I have to remember instead 
to force her thick breath into my lungs. 

It's just like mowing the lawn, 
he'd said, snipsnip the stems 
before they get too tall, but 
there will always be more 
seeds. The yard has to be tidy 
when the neighbors stop by. 

Sweat beads my face, cramps contract 
my stomach and I lurch 
to the brittle lawn to heave. 
There is nothing left in my guts 
to expel. My fingers rake the dry 
grass, nails digging down for the fertile 
earth. The sharp stalks blur 
to mottled tan and 
I can't help 

but wonder if 
with my tears 
they, at least, will 

grow. 

22 

Rosalinda Leyva 

A Time to Watch 

2008 Lester M. Wolfson 2nd I 

My grandfather is nearly blind. 

Walks with his hands extended 
in front of him, tries not 
to run into something that has 
been in the same place 
for forty years, like the china 
cabinet stacked 

with cantaritos and coma/es. 

His walking stick hits a shoe 
box filled with plastic forks 
from restaurants. "Que es eso?" 
"Tenedores." I answer. He laughs 
for the first time in days. He 

walks outside with leftovers and 

I watch him feed rice and empanada < 

to starving birds and stray cats. I 
think he does it searching for somethi 

Life-
Hope-

Peace-

I don't know, but I need my grandfatl 

like he needs the birds. 

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