thumbtacks

by grace pariser

I think of that day one year on the Fourth of July

when my brother, accompanied by a firefighter,

paddled a canoe brimming with fireworks

into the center of the lake.

He sat on the yoke as they

soared stories of buildings high above his head. 

He loved it.

I want to feel, so terribly, exactly like that.

Fireworks falling as hailstones,

or as thousands of thumbtacks leaving imprints the diameter of quarters

on the sweltering water.

The way baseball fields, bleached the color of the insides of lemons,

feel identical to the rough sides of sponges

when it hasn't rained in months.

I want back those bleeding sunsets stained calamine

I couldn’t wash my hands of.

Maybe what I’m trying to say is,

I want to ride my bike for miles without listening to music,

or drench my face in rosewater and not mind the taste.