It’s hot—blistering hot—the kind of hot that forces pores to sob for mercy—begging, pleading, whimpering, dying…—but I am alive in this inferno. Scorching hot. It’s scorching hot. In this hell, I push a mower back and forth, up and down, diagonal to diagonal; each muscle in my arms burning, turning to jelly, then to ash—is this some labor penance for missing this morning’s mass? A representation of the struggle between man’s attempts to tame nature and her assertive dominane over him? Have I become a metaphorical reality, revealing that, in life, one must, each day, thrust his mower up infinite hills to decaptitate infinitely growing grass? Or am I a symbol of feminine struggle—performing a man’s task (one without end) for man’s money—when the grass would rather be growing, stretching, until it reaches its point of equilibrium and can grow no more…and I would rather be watching it, encouraging it…pressing pen to paper without such purpose as cutting the grass requires.