MOWING LAWNS
By Michael Kozlowsky
So high
Your grass
It took me
Hours
To finish and
At your damaged door
I pinkishly sought payment.
You always came
In your tank top
But I never saw you
Not completely
You peeked
Through an unholy crack
Handed me a note
And shadowed off
Into your own
Unraveling reality.
I never really
Knew you but
I invented a
Whole story
Whole cloth
I romanticized you
Donated you history
Intrigue
Danger
A lamb chop of relevance
I couldn’t just let your life go
By the way it was
But I wonder
In whose hands
Is my life
If not my own?
It’s not like you
Have a story
For me
Do you?
Though
If you did
I’m not sure
I’d want to
Hear it.
![Amy_MacKay_[assembling a stage with two rooms for dreaming]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d8045d_e8ba4e5670834a539882a3eea90424f3~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_147,h_111,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,blur_2,enc_avif,quality_auto/Mowing_Amy_MacKay_%5Bassembling%20a%20stage%20with%20two%20rooms%20for%20dreaming%5D_oil%20on%20canvas_2018_72_x.jpg)
Amy Mackay, [assembling a stage with two rooms for dreaming], 2018, oil on canvas, 72" x 96".
Michael Paul Kozlowsky is a writer living in New York. His latest novel, Scarecrow Has a Gun, was published in 2022. His children's novels, written as M.P. Kozlowsky, include Juniper Berry and The Dyerville Tales from HarperCollins, and Frost and Rose Coffin from Scholastic Press. His writing has appeared on The No Sleep Podcast, and in Passages North, Whiskey Tit, Miracle Monocle, and The Inquisitive Eater, among others.
Amy MacKay is an artist and educator based in Los Angeles. She earned her MFA from UC Irvine in 2018 and BA from Bard College in 2007. Through an intensive research based process, she makes paintings based on documentation of site-specific, performative events she stages with people in her life. Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in spaces such as La Beast Gallery, Baert Gallery and the Honolulu Museum. MacKay is also one of the founders of the after hours gallery in Downtown Los Angeles, and the arts initiative Group Practice.