• Strobe daylight dawns in the northeast
    Piercing the haze over the patriotic
    Americans standing in the driveway with
    Eyes glued on the glittering
    Chemical starbursts glowing in the night sky.
    All around are whistles and
    Flashes of little cones and boxes
    From their larger cones and boxes
    Giving their all at the flame's command.
    A spark of thought lights my mind,
    A thought that the high-soaring bursts of light
    Look so much like the sputter-sparking trails
    Of the weapons we hate.
    Yet though both are so harmful
    We embrace one and condemn the other.
    And I wonder in a question half-risen
    If strangers were to see the lights from
    Over the country, what would they see,
    Celebration or war?
    Fitting, perhaps, for a celebration of a war we won
    That it should look like exploding bombs
    Sound like machine guns
    And come in cute little missile-shaped packages.