Free Entry 1. Week 10

Think of Herb Alpert playing 3 O’clock Jump
on a Sunday in your backyard
while your father mows the lawn.
How much would he have to gleam
pressure to his his lips to overcome
the loud, twirling blade of your father’s
weekend ritual? Your father primming
the bulb as Herb prims his brass.
The weekends have morphed into lawnmowers,
and the mailboxes curb us
with their electric bills.
Praise the bottles of cheap beer,
for there’s too many hands.
And by that I mean there’s not enough
watches—or at least Herb doesn’t have one,
because for him its always 3 o’clock.
My father once tried to brew his own ale.
He called it Tijuana Brass,
and drank it as he mowed the lawn.