Blurring the house – a poem
INtroduction:: Step into “it’s August,” a poem from my Blurring the House manuscript. A father mows the lawn. Children play in the geraniums. Inside the house, a sweetheart smokes. These moments reveal the quiet tensions of family life.
It’s August
and every Saturday
morning
my father pushes
a fire-engine-red
electric mower.
The fifty-foot orange
cord hangs from
an upstairs
window
at the back of the house—
the white curtains
fluttering like handkerchiefs
waving surrender.
My father is not yet 26.
The wet-cut green grass
sticks to his white sneakers.
My sister and I play
on the front lawn, play
in the red and pink
geraniums, while
his sweetheart
sits on the flowered
plastic-covered couch
that sticks to her skin,
and the gray smoke
from her cigarette
hides her face.
My father wonders:
Why did I choose
electric?
The hum of the motor
somehow
out of place.
Pink-faced,
the sweat
in his eyes
blurring the house.
© 2025 Chris Leibow — Salt Lake City artist and poet.
poetry, collage art, mixed media,
Explore more art at leibow.art.
Christopher
Christopher Leibow is a poet, visual artist and a sensei is a lay minister with Bright Dawn Way of Oneness Buddhism and is the sensei and founder of the Salt Lake Buddhist Fellowship which he has led for ten years. He has had his art and poetry published international. He lives in Salt Lake City and spends his time with his two youing boys Teague and Ronen
