Dogged doggerel in Well now

Waging odious battle against the never-dying green,
I look up from the fence I am deforesting from the all-devouring viney weeds
that simply will not die,
no matter how much ethically wrong “weed-killing” chemical I dump on them.
I see myself in the glass of the next yard’s garage,
what little hair I still have somehow managing to escape from beneath the straw bonnet,
a smudge or two of dirt where I’ve swiped at sweat with hands none too clean,
the face that’s less than happy, less than lovely,
just doggedly determined.

I pay people to mow my lawn
because I can’t do it myself anymore.
I don’t, however, have enough to pay what it would take for them
to keep the creeping jungle at bay
and the nasty neighborhood clipboard twins from calling the parish on me again.
Sigh.
Always been, always will be.

I salute the tired woman in the multipaned glass,
noting the age on her
and determine that the state of our back is such
that it’s nigh on time to call a halt to today’s unwinnable battle.

The woman in the glass
salutes back
and a bizarre verse coalesces
from the nothing in my head.

“I never pretty was
So I’ll never pretty be
Which helps with mirror fed regrets
About the aging me.”

Last updated May 16, 2017