the best places to watch the fireworks

1.
glowing titans follicles-- 
the men pounding the earth
a town over. what did we do to make
them to red-angry?

2. 
we talk about
the best places to watch them. i'm
thinking about last year how
i didn't try to see-- openned
the blinds of my window &
let them try to win my attention 

3. 
the first always catches me 
off guard & i think
to myself-- what kind of country
reenacts the legs of war?

4.
your birthday is the 4th of july
& it's still in my calendar. i don't
take it off because i want to
remember what it was like to 
chase the tails of dragons on
long beach boardwalk-- the ferris
wheel lights 

5. 
in pennsylvania you can open-carry
with a license & sometimes at the super
market i see someone with a gun on
their hip-- i imagine them
all-- arm raised skyward as they
shoot into the stomach of the night sky

6.
are fireworks made of blood?

7.
if you go up on the hill you can
all the surrounding towns-- sit on
the sidewalk & feel the stone shuddering

8.
do the stones know these
are only games?

9.
do we know these are only game?
i imagine them encroaching on us from
all directions. 

10.
in another country children would
duck & cover at this kind of sound.


11.
my brother wears earphones 
because loud noises scare him--
last year he closed his eyes

12.
sometimes i want to take
those earphones & put them
over the world-- great big sound
blockers-- it's quiet now
it's quiet now 

13.
do you remember how to load 
a musket? powder down the barrel
follow by the charge--
flintlock me for safe keeping

14.
whose backyard are you?

1.
on the roof. that's where you
go when the spark-flood happens.
when the explosives turn against you.

1.
happy birthday in a bottle rocket. 
i don't get the same kind 
of thrill i used to out of them
but at least i remember us
up there-- collecting the fragments 
of dried sunset-- using them
as chalk on each other's skin