Tag: Fourth of July

What We Keep on the Fourth by Veronica Tucker

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What We Keep on the Fourth

It’s not the anthem
or the sparklers burning
their short, bright lives
in the hands of children
who will never know
how long we waited
for a moment like this.

It’s the way corn
tastes sweeter in July,
the way the dog sleeps
in the patch of shade
beneath the picnic table
while someone hums
an old song
that doesn’t need a name.

It’s flip-flops by the lake
and the screen door
slamming behind a cousin
you haven’t seen since last summer
but still love in the way
you love watermelon
and stories that start with remember when.

It’s the long daylight,
stretching like a promise
no one is ready to cash in.
It’s smoke curling from the grill,
the hush before the first boom
that sends every child
into the arms of whoever
feels like home.

We say it’s about freedom,
but maybe it’s about pause,
about holding still
on the lip of summer
long enough to know
you were here
for something that mattered.

*

Veronica Tucker is an emergency medicine and addiction medicine physician, as well as a mother of three. Her work appears in redrosethorns, Red Eft Review, and Medmic, with additional pieces forthcoming. Find her at www.veronicatuckerwrites.com and on Instagram @veronicatuckerwrites.

Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House by Mary Ellen Redmond

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Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House

My neighbor on the street behind me
is using his leaf blower on this Fourth of July
during that customary lull between the parade and fireworks,
when babies nap and dogs find solace in the shade.

It sounds like a giant mosquito hovering over
our neighborhood disrupting our quiet afternoon.
But when the buzzing continues for over an hour,
I ride my bike around the corner to investigate,

and there he is on his front lawn, shirtless, in the most
patriotic way —slightly hairy chest, gold chain— blowing
his lawn clean of any leaf, stick, piece of detritus

that has landed on his artificial turf.
The yard is bordered by dozens of tiny flags stuck
between plastic red geraniums, perpetually in bloom.
Why not vacuum the whole damn yard?

Peddling home, I imagine him a member of the militia,
a true Patriot—
defending his country,
his rights, his piece of the pie,
blowing those Red Coats away,
one by one,
his leaf blower resting on his arm.

*

Mary Ellen Redmond’s poems have appeared in a number of journals including Rattle and The Cortland Review, but the publication she is most proud of is the poem tattooed on her son’s ribcage. Her interview with Gregory Orr was published in The Drunken Boat. Her poem “Fifty-Six Days” earned a Best of the Net nomination in 2016 and her poem “Joy is not made to be a crumb” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2024.

Two Poems by Olga Livshin

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A Tulip in a Besieged City

Like a soft bomb.

Like a clock,
if the clock knew
it might not go on.

It holds one petal to the side,
an ethereal skirt.

The dark, furry pistil,
fit to create, to mess something up.
The bloom, ready to croon its orange-black insides out.

A smattering of sand falls from the sky.

Petals remain
bright gathered flags.

*

Blowout

Our reading about the war in Ukraine
is tonight, here in morning-washed Miami.

I said to Julia: At least we will have beautiful hair!
Aching for our homeland, I paid strangers in a salon
to comfort our hair.

Or maybe I wanted to cover up
our knee-bent, back-curved, salty-eyed content
with presentable form,
and prettiness is an ally.

Or maybe, in the room next to my mind –
five thousand miles away –
an explosion killed a three-year-old boy
in his bed, in the night.
My phone shook with this news.
But why am I getting curled
when I have to straighten myself out?

Julia’s hair is like a river of dark metal
brushed aglow. My girl’s big laughter,
a yearning flame. Love this blowout!
she says to her stylist. Her love of love,
and voice like a beautiful animal.
She stands up, spins around,
sweeps me into a hug,
not compressed by gender or history,
amplified by what we must endure.

*

Olga Livshin’s work is recently published in the New York Times, Ploughshares, The Rumpus, and other journals. She is the author of the poetry collection A Life Replaced: Poems with Translations from Anna Akhmatova and Vladimir Gandelsman (2019). Livshin co-translated Today is a Different War by the Ukrainian poet Lyudmyla Khersonska (2023) and A Man Only Needs a Room by Vladimir Gandelsman (New Meridian Arts, 2022). As a consulting poetry editor for Mukoli: A Journal for Peace, she reviews poetry from conflict-affected communities across the world, with a focus on Eastern Europe. She lives in a suburb of Philadelphia.

A History of Fireworks by Kari Gunter-Seymour

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A History of Fireworks

It’s July 1st. Whose idea it was to wait
I can’t remember, but me, my son
and two granddaughters, nine and ten,
are at the fireworks warehouse,
along with scads of other pyromaniacs,
sorting out scenarios for night sky panoramas,
shelves heaped to the ceiling with firepower.

I do my best to maneuver the cart. My son
considers tube launchers, skyrockets, mortars.
A particularly hearty woman standing her ground
near the Roman candles cackles,
these flaming swords are the bomb,
it’s my third trip back, my kids love’em.

Flaming swords? I envision “Star Wars”
or “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,”
ER visits, burn salve at best, but when I mention
what I overheard, my son says, Awesome!

I pick up a petite pink sword, offer it
to my sweet baby girls.
The first says, I want that black sword.
The second looks up at the top shelf, stacked
to the hilt with Thor’s hammer look-alikes,
says, I want one of those conk busters.

Night of, dusk closing in,
the sword tip is lit, sparks fly—
a fountain of reds, greens and golds.
My grandgirl lunges and parries, the granddog
darts in/out of spark showers, barks,
oohs and ahhs abound—applause, applause.
Then comes the hammer,
held high and fierce.
For a few magnificent seconds
sparks fly, the dog dances,
then silence and a wee sputtering flame.

We scratch our heads, grumble,
give in to lost cause.
But my warrior girl persists,
Mjölnir aloft, double gripped,
feet planted firm and wide,
shouts her warrior oath—
then all hell breaks loose.

Flames shoot, whistles whine,
colorful spheres escape containment.
We clap and hoot, amazed at the splendor,
each of us sporting bits of confetti and soot,
the expressions on our faces hilarious,
my granddaughter’s the best face of all,
agog in the wonder of her power.

*

Kari Gunter-Seymour is the Poet Laureate of Ohio. Her current poetry collections include Dirt Songs (EastOver Press 2024) Alone in the House of My Heart (Ohio University Swallow Press, 2022), winner of the Legacy Book Award and Best Book Award. She is the executive director and editor of the Women of Appalachia Project’s Women Speak anthology series. Her work has been featured on Verse Daily, World Literature Today, American Book Review, The New York Times and Poem-a-Day.

Two Poems by Max Heinegg

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North Shore on the 4th

              We draw lines and stand behind them.
              That’s why flags are such ugly things.
                            – Fugazi, “Facet Squared”

A shirtless boy drags Old Glory
down the cracked road leading to the quarry
where another drowned a week ago.
Should I tell him a flag should never touch the ground?

I remember teenage me, singing Fugazi
and what irony privilege enjoys. Youth
and ideals rot. I haul my half-century up
to a yard teeming with legal pot and sunflowers,
a seeded pumpkin patch and a wilderness
behind a house whose hold teems with deer
a stone’s throw from a one-floor elementary.

The local working-class elitism ranks How long
have you lived here? None born here could buy here.
America in relief: energetic patriotism, the messiah
of youth in scout uniforms, good neighbors gathered
to belt the hits of what they still call country
in unison. So much easier than trying the harmony.

*

Florida Man

The librarian wants to know why we’re headed,
as does my chiropractor. All three of us Jewish,
I joke, to be reunited with our people. Not the retired
erudite, dining on fried grouper & margaritas,
(too sweet by twice), but the pot-bellied swagger
of white hair, palming Modelo cozies. It’s June
& Pride, mid the madness of DeSantis. The highway
signs are all guns & ammo, vape shops, personal
injury, COVID test results & how evolution ain’t.

We tour a destroyed botanical garden & gators lurk.
We take selfies with a digital Dali, smirking in St. Petersburg.
We sink shin-splinted legs into the tide, then steaming sand,
& sight the ibis hovering on the shore like cursive,
& observe boys skimboard three seconds, psyched.
Near sunset, on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend,
approached by a veteran, tattooed, collarbone down.
Skulls on his sleeves, bloodied Jesus, his shorts read Anti-Hate.
He offers to take a photo before the sun goes down.

*

Max Heinegg is the author of Going There (2023), and Good Harbor (2022), which won the inaugural Paul Nemser Prize; a chapbook, Keepers of the House, is forthcoming in March 2025, all published by Lily Poetry Books. His work has appeared in 32 Poems, The Cortland Review, Thrush, Asheville Poetry Review, and Borderlands, among others. He lives, teaches, and makes records in Medford, MA. Connect with him @ www.maxheinegg.com

Fourth of July by Francine Rubin

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Fourth of July

Gun shots or firecrackers?
How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen
tells you to diffuse tantrums
by drawing rage,
attacking the page with color.
My children finally asleep,
I watch them on the monitor.
That sound again.
My chest a fist.
I grab a crayon.
“America, I am this mad,”
I whisper,
stabbing the sheet of paper
like bullets at a parade.

*

Francine Rubin is the author of the poetry chapbooks If You’re Talking to Me: Commuter Poems (dancing girl press), City Songs (Blue Lyra Press), and Geometries (Finishing Line Press). She is online at francinerubin.tumblr.com.

Four Poems by Amy Smith

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After You

I’m not any sadder, certainly not
sadder than that day in August, returning
bra to breasts in the dressing stall
at the mammogram place when Adele came on.
I’d only known you for two weeks then, but I wept
so hard I thought my chest would cave in.
And I remember how good it felt to be held at all–even
in that space, saddest of rooms. Looking back now
I think even cancer didn’t want me that summer,
and how lucky I am–
there’s still time for anything.

*

The Fourth of July

and nobody told the end of the world.
Or maybe the end of the world didn’t tell
the Fourth of July. Either way,
some things don’t need saying. And there are still
small kindnesses remaining: a sprinkler
slicing through the thickness of summer, the cardinal
unapologetic in her living, Mom
in the garden caring for things that return to her
year after year.

*

Ode to the MRI Machine

O
tunnel
of
terror
&
sound
take
courage
take
cover
turn
despair
around
take
wrong
take
rage
make
right
take
gadolinium
light
take
T2/Flair
take
tissue
take
bone
take
image
O
eggshell
white
throne
take
orders
take
oath
take
Hippocrates
to
hell

*

Acceptance

The night we waited for your sister,
warm after baths in the dim bedroom light,

you dragged a bug-eyed kitty cat up
my left arm, the one that’s usually numb

but not completely without feeling.
That August, the Reiki master felt it

and said, You’ve got blocked energy
there. And I cried, though I didn’t know why.

I guess even the stuffed animals sensed
I needed healing.

What a cute little guy! I said, watching
that bug-eyed kitty cat.

I had another one but it got lost in the butterfly room
forever and ever and ever, you said

(without the r’s,
or a trace of sorrow or self-pity).

You were three.
Even now, it astonishes me

how we love
the things we lose.

*

Amy Smith’s poems have appeared in Waxwing, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. She works in a high school library in central New York.