By: Daril Bentley

Large Lawns

The good chur-
chgoers
will,

Idling tomorrow
and cur-
sing the national

News
and Saturday
mowers

That haltingly go,
still
in plush pews

Wor-
ship what they
mow.

Refiners of Games

Our jacks and pick-up-sticks become the tangles
of the politically invested—
our toss-rings and marbles
the rollings-round of ballrooms
in evening ties and gowns. All the paper dolls

Cut from construction paper folded
teach us the cross-border religions
of hand-in-hand dooms.
The caviar one downs at smart fundraisers loads
a squishy lead

Where corks once popped pols
from popguns.
We cover the angles
as soon as discover that the potty plot implodes
upon the favor’s bedtime fables.

Our plinking tiddlywinks
inevitably land
as piggy-bank coins we earn for standing drinks
to the patrons we cannot stand—
then whom we bed.

Rush Hour

Car after car,
every motorist hurries—
for where
they do not know.

Every martyr worries
they are not there—
but there, so far,
is indicated by a dare

Of stripes on tar.
And so,
clueless as to where
the striping leads—

Horn and glare,
lost in road-rage screeds,
from where they are
they go.

Suburban Ritual

In his ox-blood size-eleven
slippers over white tube socks
and over his plaid
pajamas a terry-cloth

Robe, Mr. Adam McNair
comes from louvered
sunscreen sliding plate-glass
door early over grass

Blades clipped as putting pad
to a silver mailbox
where are delivered
bills and letters to 777

Mercy Square Lane, “Nauth,”
Enchanting Meadows, Mass.—
his aimless disheveled hair
Hoovered toward heaven.

This Is America

This is America.
People flying myriad flags.
Fixing an old truck
for one’s old geezer.

Raising their families.
Trying to make a buck.
This is America.
People bearing government gags.

Bagging a buck
to put in the freezer.
Navigating anomalies
and scratch-off luck.

This is America.
People lifting fewer grocery bags.
Eating chuck
instead of that damn sirloin teaser.

Quoting down-home homilies.
Backyard cookout easer
with friends in baggy sags.
A Big Jim and Huck.