weekend warriors by John Grochalski

it is 7 a.m. on a saturday

i’m hungover and awake

because one revs his lawn mower

and lets it go wild

the other one has a hammer that echoes

two doors down

one has a fleet of mexican men

doing a total revamp on his lawn

i watch these men from my window

like i’m watching aliens

then i go around the apartment

cursing and shutting all of the windows

sit on the couch

swirling a glass 

with the dregs of last night’s wine

as more and more of them

head outside

to water

to rake

to prune

to trim

and i wonder

who in the hell 

the real alien is

around here.

John Grochalski is the author of the poetry collections, The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), and The Philosopher’s Ship (Alien Buddha Press, 2018). He is also the author of the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), and Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016).  Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where the garbage can smell like roses if you wish on it hard enough.