Fourth of July

If I have any romantic notions left,

please let me abandon them here

on the dashboard of your Subaru

beside this container of gas station

potato salad and bottle of sunscreen.

Otherwise, my heart is a sugar packet

waiting to be shaken open by some

other man’s hand. Let there be another town

after this one, a town with an improbable Western

name—Wisdom, Last Chance—where we can get

a room and a six-pack, where the fireworks

end early, say nine o’clock, before it’s really

gotten dark enough to see them because

everyone has to work in the morning.

I’m not asking for love anymore.

I don’t care if I never see a sailboat again.

--Keetje Kuipers