Burn Ban

The city sent a postcard

printed on yellow paper

telling us to let the lawn go

into its final, beige sleep.

I stepped off the curb

and the sound was wrong—

not a soft give of clover

but the crunch of a thousand

shattered lightbulbs.

In the middle of the yard,

the birdbath is a desert.

The ceramic is flaking off

like sunburnt skin,

leaving a floor of gray,

hexagonal mud.