Mowing Deconstructed

Larry Fontenot

The woman across the street ties back her hair,
puts on an old gray shirt when she mows.
As she circles her lot, crescents of sweat
grow huge under her arms and a dark patch
slowly spreads between her breasts
like a shadow drawn out after midday.

This shape reveals more than separation.
It conjures the lure of heat, suggests
a stance against grass and marriage.
I watch as her duel with nature becomes
a feud broken off only when the sun
begins to thin in the air of dusk.

Some nights when her man comes to visit,
I cross the street and stand outside her house.
I listen to her soft moan, the sound of sheets
stripped from the bed, the creak of bodies falling in.
She knows this about me, and teases
with an open window even when it’s cold.

She has carefully constructed a boundary
that says this is me and this is you and we
will never share desire across this dark patch,
never speak in anxious tones, never meet
in the crux of a major crisis, have first names
or pretend to teach when we are really learning.

So I watch while she mows, step outside to retrieve
the paper, wave back when she raises one hand
to greet me, that splendid loop of moisture widening
like a mouth, a wound, an orb of love I will never know,
just fantasy held close, like the notion of climbing
through her window one night when she’s alone.

Larry Fontenot