RWB Workshop Poem of the Week—August 6

Zorida Mohammed

August

I was coming up for air
from the loss of my mother,
when Pretty Boy, my pup
chased some sparrows into the street.

Dinner plate hibiscus were in full bloom
when my spritely boy laid motionless in the street.
I covered him with pink blossoms
before I covered him with earth in the backyard.

The dogwood seems to begin turning
color earlier and earlier each year— 
the nondescript brown, 
like a parasite, overnight
on the green leaves.

Tending the garden beds,
grown so wild and prolific,
it prompted a gardening friend 
to blurt, “Lowe’s has got nothing on you.”

August is a weighty month.
Even perfect days are overlaid with lack luster.
Nothing, no thing counterweights
the weight of August.

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