Bourgeois Lawn

Bourgeois Lawn
By Brian Looney

Each day the aging man
Ventures from his aging house
To tend his aging yard.

Each day he bends his sour joints
To weed his sour garden.

He knows the weeds grow back overnight.

Yet he strives for unobtainable perfection,
Reflecting upon his imperfect life all the while.

He sees past loves, lost passions
In withering flower petals.

He ponders the spent possibilities
Of the unattainable past
As he unearths sleeping larvae.

His wrinkly body
Trembles
At Regret's icy jabs.

It waits to die.
It wants to die.
It strives to leave vapid greenery
And join the yellowed patch.

Behold, our lonely purposeless man.

His rheumatic hand creaks the valve on.
Out gushes an endless stream of gurgling fluid
Fertilizing his sickly children.

Are they vivacious?

He perceives the distant moan
Of an approaching vehicle.

A dark and nameless fear grips him.

By now the overwatered grass has turned to slush
And he crumples into hellish anticipation.

A hearse glides down the street
Carrying his body to its grave.