All Over the Place: For Father’s Day

By Michael H. Brownstein

I Think about My Son
While I Cut a 
Quarter Acre of Lawn

The father trims trees; his son trims trees –

they stand together before a mosaic of large bark,

new blossoms, a glitter of leaf, each one

holds a clipboard and a small golf-scoring pencil,

their heads bent towards each other discussing

length and circumference, distance and height,

dry rot, the mulberry growing out of the maple,

the small tree forming in the elbow of dogwood

and I cut the grass in long rows thinking of my son,

the flea market twenty-dollar mower grunting

one line after another, steep hills, roots,

the remnant of an old wall now revealing itself,

rock and brick, tree debris, clumps of earth,

the sun warming me to sweat and brine,

knowing he is cool in his lab researching herbs

and a multitude of plants, degrees in botany,

grants to travel to Vancouver, Scotland,

the north of Viet Nam near the Chinese border,

to Missouri and his farm of figwort and moss,

then Chicago to his office, a portrait of his son and wife

on the wall above his desk, a photo of his mother,

the air conditioner blasting, his equipment singing

soft hymns, his computers opening pages of notes.

He will be coming to visit late August, the grass

not as tall, the rocks and debris gone,

and he will wake after his first night in his old bed,

come down for breakfast, his family still recovering

from their long trip, and say to me,

“Let’s cut the grass?” and I will answer, “Yes.”

I Cut the Grass
with My Son

My son, no longer a boy, tall and taller,

Leans into the lawn mower on the hill,

The last quarter-acre of land, the grass

Tall, too, lanky like him, allows itself

To shape-shift, the first days of September,

The sun on fire, the air on fire, I am melting,

My hair loose over my face like a wet mop,

My shirt discolored with everything pouring

From me, but there is shade and somehow

A light breeze. My son is as composed as can be,

Pushing the mower up the hill for another pass.

When he is done, he asks what’s next.

The silk trees, I point, growing everywhere.

And the vinko vines leaching into tree trunks

We wish to keep healthy. There’s a strand

Of poison ivy. The evergreen needs a trim.

So we work and the weight of the work

Grows heavy within me, but he is not wet,

His hands are not dirty, and yet the silk trees

Fall, the vinko vines disrupted at their roots,

The poison ivy cut at its source. Next?

He asks, but I need a break, our gallon jugs

Humid in the heat, and I am hungry, too,

So we enter the house where his baby girl

Leans into her mother, already knowing strength,

And my son who is no longer a boy

Lifts his child carefully in his large hands,

Kisses her gently on the forehead once, twice, twice more.

We have to do more, he tells her. When we finish,

We’ll take a walk downtown, visit the library,

And maybe get a bite to eat. What do you think?

And he kisses her again, on the top of her head,

Rubs his hand through the soft silk of her hair,

His strong hands containing all of her, his baby girl

Making baby sounds, and my son blue-skies happy.

Copyright © 2021 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively.