The lawnmower roars the neighborhood

alive.  Across the back alley the machine

spits out sticks, 8 a.m.  Gray people

awaken to their tired lives, trudging to their weekly

cleansing of sins.  Morning

Mass at Our Lady of Sorrows, somewhere

between here and there.  Years

ago my mother made her way, her own

sins bearing down: children who grew to be people

she did not know or want, wants

of their own she could not fill. The past neatly mowed, detritus

of their lives.  At two or three or four, the meeting of desires

was simple, something she could handle,

a small daughter’s hand

clutching her own, pulling her along

over perceived cracks in the sidewalk, the daily rifts

of childhood, things that could not be seen,

languishing,

left behind.