Independence Day

Family gatherings
with gaggles of enthusiastic cousins
drunk on jacuzzi water
and the summer pollens
flop around on the deck
and sit in white plastic chairs
burying their faces in juicy watermelon slices.

Fruit popsicles drip
down skinny arms.
Sodas spill
in careless laps.
Barbeque sauce smothers
tiny fingers.

Mosquitoes feast
on available flesh.

Dads in Hawaiian print button-up shirts
flip hamburgers and chicken all day
while mothers gossip
and sip their margaritas,
head bobbing every few seconds
to locate their children at play.

Gravel crumbles under quick feet,
games of kick-the-can
in the driveway.

Occasional shouts and screams of delight
interrupt the buzz of the cicadas
and the hum of friendly conversations.

On Independence Day
anxious cousins crowded each other
for front row seats
to our own pyrotechnic firework show.

As the sun sank even further behind the trees
the eagerness caused a silence over everyone
as they waited on fold out chairs
for uncles to prepare the brightly wrapped boxes
and sticks of July 4th delight and Piccolo Pete’s
on fence posts.

Rough and rowdy men
were now subdued
by toxins pumping
through their blood.

I was hoisted onto pebble laden shingles
along with a selected few
left there to dangle my legs over the carport’s edge,
my legs swaying in the evening air,
my heart pounding, waiting.

Mothers murmur somewhere
far below us
while we gazed beyond our bare feet,
anticipating the show of sparks.