[Poem-a-Week] Something Beautiful by David E. Poston

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Last month,
as the Fourth of July barrage
dissolved into the night
and people around me
gathered camp chairs and blankets
for the slog through everyone’s trash
back to their cars,
I stood there in the dark
waiting for one more
bright flowering
I knew would never come.
Now, lying alone
just before dawn
waiting for the Perseids
to flare across
the edge of sight
as the sky begins to pale
behind a rumple of mist
where the dark lake waits,
I shouldn’t worry about
which faint streaking
will be the last.
I’m remembering
my ninety-year-old father
bursting into laughter
at the Dairy Queen
as he ate a banana split,
and what was so funny to him
was the sudden thought—
he said this—
that it might be
the last one he ever ate,
and what could I do
but laugh with him
and remember later
that he was right?