fourth of july

i think about what poetry is supposed to be about
as i swallow the gum-ball eyes
of a sherbet spongebob popsicle,
watching his skewered body become an abstract mess
of bleeding colors while the vibrant
trills of youth eddy around my ankles.

is it about how i’m too old to wear glowstick bangles and
paint my chuck taylors in verdant rebellion?
i’m no longer a nascent bloom of
cherry and sapphire glitter but college really wasn’t
that long ago, and i remind myself of this
as i watch homemade fireworks self-destruct
into kamikaze bursts of napalm and rhinestones.

or maybe, i think, it’s about how limerence leaks out of me
like silent droplets of condensation,
slurpees and lemonades abandoned
on street curbs and dirty diner counters,
pitching fevers that won’t break until the
sun grows tired of hanging in a burning sky.

or what if it’s about beauty and
how i’m supposed to be in the prime of my life,
a static flower stuck in full bloom,
an open rose erect and rife with powdered sugar pollen.
if that’s true then why do i feel so lopsided and uncouth,
overgrown and unripe
as if there was a defect in the soil i was raised in?

whatever the case, i blink and miss the
zenith of midsummer.
families plod along the grass like world-weary soldiers,
the phantom etchings of the season
slowly fading into black and navy bruises up above.