HAPPY 4th of JULY WEEKEND!

A lot of you are probably off for the 4th weekend. I'm always off, so we won't go there (yes, I joke only slightly).

I thought for the occasion I would share with you a poem I wrote and published in Liquid Ohio some years ago. It is a nice summer-time poem and it has nuances of the 4th. I hope you enjoy.

We browsed the antique tent,
ate blue clouds of cotton candy
and drank lemonade mixed up in front of us.
Smoke clouds billowed out of steam engines
blowing shrill whistles into the umbrella of oak.
I watched transfixed the men in the barbecue pits,
skin-charred, turning large racks of chicken and ribs.
We perched on tree trunks fitting our mouths around
brats from the grill with everything on them,
and drank bottled pop kept on ice in big cattle troughs.
At the end; explosions in the inky night sky.
Swatting mosquitoes we slinked home the back way,
down the country road.

by Lorelei Bell copyright 2004/Liquid Ohio issue #36