The 5th of July

Littered lawns
And scorched driveways
Buckets filled with soot-filled water
And spent sparklers
Now black bumpy sticks of metal

​Tipped-over cones
Hollow and tipped with black burns
Red mini parachute caught
In branches or hanging
Out of the gutter on the house
​
In the distance
A random snap or pop
Reports and breaks the silence
And the slight smell of gunpowder
Drifts by in the humid summer breeze.