Zero Conditional

Sarah Jean Grimm

Lawns are reversible. They suffer without care.

When I think of care, I don’t picture poison,

but certain constructs require ruinous maintenance.

In the dark that follows every firework, the daybirds sing.

More than the display, their confusion moves me.

It’s okay to anthropomorphize,

as long as you don’t bestow an animal with false nobility.

A bald eagle doesn’t make the sky proud.

The turtle is no more humble than the rabbit,

ever at attention with salad in its teeth.

I will always tell you if you have something in your teeth.

When it gets unstuck, I’ll go, You got it.

I don’t know how far my care goes, and I suffer for it.

Some substance pulls through my heart-shaped heart.

The Yale Review · “Zero Conditional” by Sarah Jean Grimm

HOW DID THIS POEM BEGIN FOR YOU?

I was explaining fireworks to my toddler on the Fourth of July. Trying to justify the spectacle made me pay closer attention to it, and I noticed a group of birds singing between every burst. Their response felt endearing and logical. It reminded me of how animals behave during eclipses.

I often experience my child’s open attention to the world like goggles I can borrow to notice what I might otherwise overlook. I wanted to play with assumed truths—the grammar of inevitability in the zero conditional. The poem links different forms of (ostensible) care, including forms that require harm: the social constructs of lawns, cultural artifacts, nationalistic rituals. It settles into the friction between wanting to care well and the impotence of merely caring.

Sarah Jean Grimm is the author of Soft Focus and the chapbook Hog Lagoon. She edits the small poetry press After Hours Editions and works as a literary publicist.

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