Seven
Foot Sickle Bar Mower
Lifeless on an idle patch of
Wear farm, swallowed
by time marked in jimson and honey
vine milkweed
budging, a thing of the past to
the eyes of a city boy, worse
a northerner, shoeless and
shirtless, evenly tanned but
for pale omegas of a low tide flat
top wreathing my ears
white shading to blue at the
temples, prayerful snakes
slept late, coiled around clutches
of my worst nightmare.
Oil can like the oil can that
tormented the Tin Man
in hand, brandished jail break file
in the other, grandpa circled
the scorpion, striking at the lethal
tail, silvering edges
of serrated eye teeth, eyes
shadowed by the brim of the pith
helmet he wore back in his C.C.C.
days, liquoring up
bushings gone dry in the heat
while I watched from the open
palm of the Ford NAA Jubilee
tractor seat, bearing
witness to the honing of blades
destined to work
at cross purposes against the
high grass bearding
the branch, touching but not
touching, my father’s face
swimming naked in the quarry of
grandpa in profile
angled low above the linkage
mechanism, steel working
against steel, shadow working
against light, my hand rolling
fine red clay dust into snakes
against my smooth cheek.
