The Age of Briggs & Stratton


A hammering
in the night
even after we'd finished

an arrythmic stroke
neither on the four
nor the one quite,

but pure tinkering,
that is
the ominous rattling

of inner distress
taken for molar
or fingerbone

rather than
design flaw, the mere
wear & tear

properly
natural
to a two-stroke so

innocent of
maintenance
but not sawdust not hardly!

that will accede
to pleadings, piques &
inappopriate invocations,

thus mow the lawn
ten seconds at a time
and curse the earth

with the hammer
as a wrench
or with a wrench

work boulders free
to lay the grid
of mulching pigs

over everything
erasing without squeal
the leafblower's legacy.