Candles

​They huddled among the oaks at the west side of the park. There’s a citrus colored streetlight on that corner where they divided the Roman candles between them in even numbers. Some of them made these quick defensive looks over their shoulders like they were a clutch of birds. I was walking Almo under the same color glow at the opposite end of the block and I would say that I was thinking about nothing but that’s not true. Those fleeting seconds before the explosion, I was without a doubt thinking about how I was going to explain to my daughter’s fiancé how I named the dog after a character in an ancient Roman poem. And then my hearing went and there were parts of those kids dropping out of the sky like heavy confetti. Almo jolted stiff-legged from the sound and vibration of it. My hearing went away, replaced by that high frequency thing. Some of the fireworks were still shooting from the black middle of this mess. It was a mess. I hate that it happened. They just wanted to have fun. They just wanted to be kids. Now they’re just memories of kids. I say I hate it. More like I hate that it happened to me but the rest of it is too sad to ponder at length. Too sad.