From the Fishouse

That day, a man drives a parade float
over his mother. Seniors in lawn chairs grumble,

can’t see the EMTs or the ambulance, wonder why
the parade has stopped and the baton groups

have stalled their twirling of affected grace. Mothers
spritz girls with water bottles, lipstick

themselves in the reflection of their men’s fenders.
Those scant with beards and cigarette eyes

lurk under caps with chainsaw logos and beer brands
in their trucks with roof-mounted woofers

blasting dance mixes of Celine Dion
at their daughters and nieces doing hip grinds

and other moves mimicked from MTV
in home-sewn costumes dense with sequins

hanging on their rod-straight frames. No one knows
the fate of the woman far ahead, or the mind

of the man who hit her, who is gone suddenly,
hunkered under the fire hall barbecue tent,

where the men in trucks normally gather on Thursdays
to complain about their wives or their kids or to wince

at what they don’t say about who died or to gripe
about respect, how fires don’t douse themselves. But they do,

all the time. They burn and burn and exhaust
their tinder, their air, their abundance, their light.