July 4

fireworks and drinks:
ash smears and singed leg hair
and the grim import of girls' exaggerated
startle responses. relationships and beers pass

around in circles, orbits. Thanatos, have you
met Eros? a tiny beauty flirts as only the drunk can:
a bleary-eyed intensity, the surprising
insistence of her grip; her lips

cool on my temple, seductive
and reassuring as a the barrel
of a gun. tomorrow she'll remember
nothing. the stars revolve in hazy smoke

around the sober monolith. passion
is juvenescent. I am old.