The Fourth of July

Milton Jordan

July 14, 2024

Out earlier, under the sun’s lower angle,

along our small tributary stream 

feeding the North Gabriel’s slower flow

we sit, just before midday, at our fifth floor

window and wonder at the lack of wisdom 

that leads the Sheriff's Mounted Posse 

to schedule again its Independence Day

parade and three high school bands, a number

of civic clubs and politicians to march

past the canopied courthouse judge’s stand

through the haze of triple digit heat. 

along asphalt Eighth Street beneath us,

and how thirty or so high-schoolers

will survive their Legion double hitter.  

Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown, Texas. He co-edited the first Texas Poetry Assignment anthology, Lone Star Poetry, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022.