SHERRY RIND

Reseeded Lawn

Your prefrontal cortex—where the concentrating and deciding gets done—
has been shrinking for some time . . . . —Gerald Marzorati

 

I could buy the sprinkler that waves forward and back
like the Queen tipping her hand to the hoi polloi

or an American style swearing and spitting
so hard that it spins itself

or a fairy-circle fountaining like a lily.
My life has choices and nobody

telling me squat. With my shrinking cortex unable to decide—
there’ll be no growing and certainly no flowering—

I thumb the hose and dampen the mulch to
my favorite shade of chocolate.

Most of my allotted time having passed, I might as well stand here
like a cow, empty of thought, my sweet dark eyes

contemplating the yard where the weeds used to be,
knowing, by dint of experience, what will grow back.

 

 

 

Sherry Rind is the author of four out-of-print collections of poetry and editor of two books about Airedale terriers. She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Anhinga Press, Artist Trust, Seattle Arts Commission, and King County Arts Commission. She teaches at Lake Washington Institute of Technology.