You still have to have clean hands.
And the streets of Lake Forest are immaculate
With red, white and blue bouquets
And chairs of the same brave colors placed
Along the roadside days away from the parade,
And traffic on Toledo, with those breeze-scream yellow
Tape rolls ribboning off the open trenches
So Tacos Ensenada and Ballpark Buns and Rolls
Can rest easier, afterwards, when there's rest,
And the four F's of the Fourth are over.
It was what we photojournalists called the crazy day,
Festivals, Family, Fireworks, Food
But no Fun, my light flicked onto the red Firetruck
On their day of hell, they're out there already
Mean streeting to avert some boys with brush fires.
The dangers are legion to public enforcement,
Dogs, cats, squirrels, kids
And the controls are few,
Sunglasses, a haughty look,
To disguise that you have eyes, ever-compassionate one.
You have to make nice and let the city skies burn
In the name of freedom, whose cost is gut bombs
At midnight, clearing out the animals,
Reminding us our warrior nature is our freedom,
Our willingness to say no, that does not
Work for me, no, sir, now, where's my hot dog?
I have to keep my eyes on the game, and don't want to
Have to search for where the horse radish root
Has been bedded. For I am finally a King,
Licking my fingers of pomegranate.
There's an Acrisure nearby, a Blooming Onion Dales.
"We Get It," the license plate says, "Santa Marguerita,"
Here in her town now to bless, and I to snap
A life strapped on top of a Kia, poignant toys,
A pathos-filled mattress, a voyage to a new beginning
As yet unknown, still red, white and blue somehow,
Like on a floatie in a start-your-engines parade, in Fountain Valley,
Say, there are so many stories, but still you can count the daylight
In waiting for the perfect dog to traipse upon your perfect
Sunburst yard of a hundred flags. There it is, exit 9A,
The elusive sea route to Pepperdine, where they marry
The mermaid that is California, and disappear
At the western dome of what we now know as freedom.