Independence Day by Gerald Stern

Independence Day

There were packs of dogs to deal with and broomsticks

whacking rubber balls and everyone stopping for

aeroplanes and chasing fire engines

and standing around where sidewalks on hills turned almost

level, and horses and horseshit, and ice in the cellars;

and Saturday I wore a dark suit and leaned

against my pillar and Sunday I put on a necktie

and stood in front of a drugstore eating a Clark bar.

The Fourth of July I stayed in my attic resting in

filthy cardboard and played with my bats, I stretched

their bony wings, and put a burning match

to the bundle of papers, especially to the ropes

that held them together, and read the yellow news

as it went up in smoke and spoke for the fly and raged

against the spider, say what you will, and started

my drive to Camden to look at the house on Mickle Street

and walked—with him—down to the river to skip

some stones, since Ty Cobb did it and Jim Thorpe did it

though it was nothing compared to George Washington

throwing silver dollars, and for our fireworks

we found some brown beer bottles and ran down Third Street

screaming, but he had to go back home and sit

in his rocking chair for there was a crowd of Lithuanians

coming and he was a big hit in Vilnius

the way he sat in his mound of papers and gripped

the arms, though I was tired of Lithuanians

who didn’t know shit, not to mention Romanians,

to pick a country out of a hat—or I was

just tired and Anne Marie was right, I shouldn’t

be driving at night, I should be dead, I don’t

even know how to give instructions, I don’t even know

my rabbi’s name—she and her motorcycle—

imagine them speaking Babylonian over

my shoebox—imagine them throwing flowers—fleabane,

black-eyed Susans, daisies—along with the dirt.