The Grand Finale

Let's workshop this poem about a father's self-conscious alienation from the present during a fourth of July fireworks event

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The Grand Finale

From a pause in the one-by-one launch pattern,
a pause of protracted silence—almost at once,
four tiny-tailed orbs ascend into the smoky black.
Upon reaching hushed apices varied in height,
swift-swelling blooms of radial filaments 
spider the all-eyed firmament, illumining neon
a peopled field—and its glowsticks and snacks,
its blankets and flags—toward which they start
their shaggy-dog weep just as the flam of booms 
reaches ear. To heighten their viewing pleasure
some go hard at their vapes and beers. Others 
(typically dads, boyfriends, know-it-all boys), 
enlivened by being witnessed being right, forecast
the start of the grand finale. Children in earshot 
brace themselves—a few with hands squeezing 
back pee—even if the echoing phrase is a mystery.

But the one-by-one returns. Uneasy about others
having noticed their mistake, the forecasters gulp— 
distracted from the coconuts and waterfalls longer
than those who noticed their mistake. One dad 
finds no relief in the chance that, given the length
of the show so far, the term “start” is broad enough 
to have made his forecast not wholly wrong. Instead
of slinking into silence, however, a three-by-three
has him voice a new forecast, one he cannot help
shouting to his daughter under peony sky louder 
even than before. “Yeah! Now here’s the finale!”

Hoping to avert eliciting from her, his own fruit, 
that traitorous blow (“Why are you acting funny?”), 
he is quick to look away from her face furrows—
deepened by the glow-necklace—confirming, yes,
that the affectation of his over-the-top locution 
(that of employees giving shoppers explanations
while the boss hovers, shifting random items), 
has turned guardian into stranger (as did seeing
is own dad’s face the first time shaved in a mirror).
The glinting flex of temple muscles show his fear—
close to a minute later—that blow can still come,
as his sits too upright with a grin too expectant.
Sensing the grin has been seen through as false, 
he tries to undo it, relaxing his face in increments, 
as if to coax doubt about it ever having been seen.

Odds are even the most sensitive, those who suffer
with him mortification over his second mistake,
have forgotten him by the time the torrent begins.
Knowing this, though, is no relief for him. Mired
in a wincer, a cringer, under the burden of which
he will hunch whenever the ghost of this event
returns (at the supermarket, at the dinner table),
and from which right now perhaps his only respite
is the prayer not to be called-out by his daughter
or, for that matter, other kids (some with parents,
by this time, praying for the same), the man misses
the grand finale polychromatic in his vacant eyes.

This poem is unpublished

Photo: pinterest.com.au/pin/369998925615236025/