Yes.
What you see from your window
is real.
I am,
in fact,
mowing the lawn.
I know full well
that my husband always does it.
But today he can’t.
So it’s all up to me.  

I feel you watching me.
I see the curtains flutter
as you gaze in disbelief
and disapproval.
I know it drives you crazy
when I zig
instead of zag;
when I round the edge
instead of forming a crisp point;
when I start in the middle of the lawn
instead of at the outer edge.  

I know your own lawn is your pride and joy,
and I know
my lawn
is rapidly becoming
the embarrassing black eye
of our street.  

Let him cast the first stone,
I think bitterly,
as sweat trickles down my back
in thin streams
underneath my ratty t-shirt,
whose lawn is impeccably perfect.

But then I finish my yard
and shut off my lawnmower.  

I look right,
and left,
and let my eyes linger
a minute
on everyone else’s yards.
 
And then I behold my own.  

Damn it.