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

All Over the Place: My Son Takes His Daughter to the Synagogue

For Father’s Day (Part 2)

By Michael H. Brownstein

My son and his wife go to the synagogue

The Friday someone decides to reopen the city.

After days of heat and humidity, sun stroke,

Sweat, mosquitoes and giant horse flies,

Rain and then more rain, a cold rain, the grass

Slippery, the street a small stream and a pool.

All Over the Place: I Cut the Grass with My Son

For Father’s Day

By Michael H. Brownstein

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,