Tonight the crickets’ chorus
sets an undulating braid,
The sound of fireworks punches through it —
staccato pops and cracks, keening whistles —
I’m not sure what they’re celebrating.
Tomorrow I go home

I dreamt of writing
in a pre-poem nap
but when I woke up
it was gone
There’s nothing in my sun-soaked head
but sleep.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 30, 2014