Yard Work
Punishment and glory–it’s all manifested right out there in the yard.
PENANCE FOR YARD WORK
Today I killed a snake.
The good kind. Blindly
swung weedeater without care
for all it touched. I unwound
this broken creature from the cutting
head & lay it out on concrete
so my son could see exactly
what I’d done. Curious toddler,
he poked it twice, grasping
the violence of a two-stroke engine
and green monofilament nylon spun
twelve-thousand times a minute,
the drift of cause-and-effect
on delicate snake bones.
IN PRAISE OF THE YARD SHOE
Grass-blasted,
dew-soaked,
torn-toed protector
of my flat feet,
take your place
upon the porch
& rest, for you
survived another
sweltering summer
in this city of perpetual
promise. Soles walked
slick, you hold fast despite
the impermanence of glue
& offer grace to heedless
steps that fall amidst fire-ant
mounds. All I ask is you forgive
my forgetting your blessings
’til the next Saturday morning
our unruly yard needs mowed.
About the author
Caleb Johnson is the author of the novel Treeborne, which received an honorable mention for the Southern Book Prize. His nonfiction has been cited in Best American Essays, and appears in Garden & Gun, Southern Living, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications. He teaches at the University of South Alabama.
- Caleb Johnsonhttps://www.salvationsouth.com/author/caleb-johnson/
