Funny how no one calls it by its name.
Instead we say the Fourth of July & celebrate
on the Second & Third & the Fourth & the Fifth,
the fireworks starting early & ending late
as the neighborhood boys learn their first lessons
on how to wage careless little wars
with the enemy out of sight & out of mind. 
No one warns them of collateral damage,
the poor cats & dogs running for cover under the bed.
How they shiver in those dusty foxholes,
how we wish we could tell them the bombs aren’t real,
not yet.