Walking Past a Guy Chipping Golf Balls

A dozen divots marked the area 

where he stood, evidence piled up in dirt

clumps that lay next to the curb

in front of his apartment. He chipped a ball

and it sailed in a perfect arc and landed

in the middle of the empty lot across the street. 

I slowed down to observe his ingenuity, 

his makeshift driving range. 

He glanced at me, said 

“They patch up pretty well 

when I put them back and add a little water.” 

“You must be confusing me,” I said, 

“with someone who cares 

about a yard.” He chuckled, dropped

another ball on the ground. “You and me,”

he said, “are in the minority on that one.”

Strolling down the sidewalk, 

I considered my Midwestern superpower—

my ability to not give a damn 

about my own shabby lawn

which no one will ever call manicured 

with trimmed

blades of grass choking on gallons 

of herbicides. 

What the fuck is a weed anyway?

Keith Pilapil Lesmeisteris the author of the fiction chapbook Mississippi River Museum and the story collection We Could've Been Happy Here. His poems appear or will appear in The MacGuffin, Barstow & Grand, and the Under Review. A 2023-25 Rural Regenerator Fellow through Springboard for the Arts, he currently lives and works in northeast Iowa. More at keithlesmeister.com.