poem

It’s the cocktail hour. The air is still.
Mister gets busy on the charcoal grill.
Social-kissing women, backslapping men
has failed to break the ice. But then
Missiz appears like magic from the dusk.
Cool, ten years his junior, she smells of musk
and ‘Madame Rochas’. Two small spots of anger
high on her cheekbones linger…

—Liz Lochhead, “Fourth of July Fireworks”

Published in THREE SCOTTISH POETS, @canongatebooks 1992

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #4thofJuly #FourthofJuly

Fourth of July Fireworks
by Liz Lochhead

The guests are gathered.
Boston-Irish Nancy, half in huff
says, ‘Better help yourselves,
you all know Mister’s timing well enough.’
Aside at me she mutters.
‘Millionaires can afford to let things wait.
Honest-to-God Mister would be late
for his own funeral.’ Cigarstore Indian,
I hide behind my apron, wait and drink in all I can.

(We don’t exist. They pick our trays,
Tom Collinses, Martinis and canapés.)

Oh horror, New England night,
when I fetched the ice down and that snake
looped my feet in the kitchen garden! I still shake.
‘Harmless,’ says Nancy.
I hear her hiss, ‘Some host!
That beggar’ll only get here when he’s sure he’s last.’

Fourth of July. Cape Cod. Dead on cue,
last-man Mister comes running to his barbecue.
Arms flailing like a cricketer’s across the lawn
from his ‘so English’ house with a flame red shirt on.

It’s the cocktail hour. The air is still.
Mister gets busy on the charcoal grill.
Social-kissing women, backslapping men
has failed to break the ice. But then
Missiz appears like magic from the dusk.
Cool, ten years his junior, she smells of musk

ALT

and ‘Madame Rochas’. Two small spots of anger
high on her cheekbones linger.

When Mister says it’s done enough
the guests spread ketchup on the fatted calf.
The night hots up. Liquor flows. Listless
couples come alive. A bit apart, restless,
Missiz sways gently on her own
to Glen Miller on the gramophone.
All eyes are on the soignee cling
of this year’s leisure favourite, velvety stretch towelling
for patio-party wear. Those purples and electric pinks
‘Just far too hectic altogether,’ Nancy thinks.

(Ten years with Missiz, Nancy’s face
is quite professional, impervious.)

Ice melts in the Martini tray. Midges
drown. The whole night edges
to a thunderstorm. Maybugs big as golfballs thud
as screendoors bounce them. But, after our blood,
divebombing mosquitoes dodge the mesh and slide
in down their own thin whine.
They bite despite insecticide.

All at sea,
white and dayglo orange fins spinnaker the bay.
Music blares
from the jazzed-up clubhouse round the Cape, Cotuit way.
The whole damn town is two thirds empty after Labour Day.
These summer people
migrate to Florida, lock, stock and barrel.
Tonight their parked cars sprawl the drive and trail

ALT

behind those his-and-hers coupled custom Cadillacs
like a comet tail.

(Oh I can see it all quite clearly, feeling small
and stone-cold sober. But I do not count at all.)

Out on the lawn the sprinklers, oddly luminous,
sputter like Roman Candles, ominous
as the sudden snap of queer clear light
from one weird streak unzips the dark.
The German Shepherd guard dogs bark.
A wind gets up. These beach-house boards
are flimsier than playing cards.

(Over the bay, like flares
odd rockets go up with a shock of stars.)

Mister drags off his box of fireworks to the shore.
Missiz drains her drink and hits the floor
with someone half her age. His snake-arms slur
around her waist. Eyes glaze. Sentence endings blur.
Missiz (‘mutton dressed as lamb’)
comes in slowly as the false-calm
lead-slow sea that slicks the beach. Sinatra sings.
The tide ravels up slowly, shelving things.

Raindrops big as bullets dent the roof we all stand under,
watching Canute’s fireworks outrage the storm,
try to steal its thunder.

ALT

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July. Summer on the island
muffles in scarves.
Merino-socked, Berghaus-booted,
swap cocoon of car
for hilly slither. Pilgrim-trail
with sodden strangers,
step in time to the cadence of rain…

—Nikki Robson, “The Callanish Stones”
published in Other Worlds: An Anthology of Scottish Island Poems (Birlinn, 2022)

https://birlinn.co.uk/2022/06/20/poem-of-the-week-the-callanish-stones-by-nikki-robson/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Hebrides #Lewis #Callanish #StandingStones #tourism