zen = amnesia = book = notes = type = profile = nhwc = px
43things = soma = three dog party = fotolog = host

July 4th

It starts with the foreplay of roman candles blistering between cars.
On this cliff littered with broken brown beer bottles and
chicken bones,
we observe the office workers and school bus drivers silhouetted
against the smog red horizon.
Their synchronized reactions to the distant fireworks display
‘Ooh oh ah mmm oh my god’s
guttural and whispered or whistled
too intimate and sexual for this cluttered blacktop
make me uneasy.
I don’t want to hear the secretaries,
who’ve waited all year for this publicly condoned awe,
whimper in their calculatedly casual clothes and payless shoes.
I hate feeling my own chest heave, my own lips part involuntarily
as the Ooooohhhhhh escapes my mouth
softly like some wayward moth.
There is a forced sensuality here in this cloud of smoke and patriotism.
The violent explosions of red and green and blue and white
feel dirty and manipulated as porn.
The grand finale is a mandated orgasm,
the snare drum snarl
Rat tat tat tat
gunpowder bitter on the breeze.
Filing back into our cars,
clutching spent sparklers between our fingerstips,
we ignore the cloud of lightening bugs at our ankles
the only authentic brightness in this dark.

before = after