squirrels were running across the roof
jittering
and jolting from gather to a rambunctious complacency,
the smells from hot grills cooked the afternoon drift,
I sat on my backporch smoking a cigarette
and wondering just how long it had been
since I'd last gotten laid,
the U.S. government gave teachers and postal workers
24 hours
to do with as they pleased,
Michael Moore ate a bag of potato chips
and Dick Cheney's daughter was still gay,
the sun stood sweating on its arcane struggle
to singe us with a chance,
and fireworks fireworks fireworks
went off
throughout the town and the city
in the allotted celebration for Independence
Day.

I snuffed out my cigarette in the ashtray
and it occurred to me
that if a mushroom cloud
bloomed in the yawning sky
the people would think it was just one more
firework,
they would go oooh
and they would go aaah,
and that would be the last way
they would ever go.

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