Fourth of July

The neighborhood cringes behind windows washed in magnesium light, streamers fizzling above the shingled rooftop of the apartments across the street where teenaged boys with mannish arms throw cherry bombs, bottle rockets, wings and spinners, snappers, chasers, fiery cryolite wheels onto the avenue. Paint flakes off the flammable houses and onto brave square plots of white grass. Rain-deprived vines sucker the shutters. Backyard dogs tear at the dirt, cats run flat out, their tails straight up. What's liberty to the checkout girl selling smokes and nuts, greenbacks turning her fingers to grease? The boys insist on pursuing happiness, their birthright: a box of matches, crackers on strings, sparklers, fountains, missiles, repeating shells, Roman candles, Brazilian barrages. We peek through blind slats to where they stand around a manhole cover, the gold foam of Corona bottles breaking at their feet, young up-turned faces lit by large caliber multi-shot aerials. We suffer each concussion, the sulfer rush that smells like fear, each dizzy, orgiastic display that says we love this country, democracy, the right to a speedy trial. We're afraid to complain, to cross the spent red casings melted on asphalt in the morning's stunned aftermath, to knock hard on any door, and find them draped like dead men over the couches, the floor, hands clasped behind their heads prison style, shoulders tattooed, dreaming the dreams of free men in summer, shirts off, holes in their jeans.