“‘Round Midnight” by D.A. Lockhart
from the 2017 Poem in Your Pocket Day booklet
The scene opens with fireflies
above an Indiana pond and rain
falling against leaves like hot shrapnel.
And you, alone with your pack of sparklers,
you with thoughts of Wes Montgomery,
sometime around midnight,
And you humming to the flickers
of those fireflies because they are tied
to the shrapnel and the four-four time.
And you know that this scene is a place
you’ve been before because at the rock candy
core of America we have all been here before.
And alone, you hum that guitar riff, hum it
as if you have played in every window-less
bar room in 1950’s Indiana Avenue Indianapolis.
And though you are nothing less than decades
late for that, you’re crystalized sugar core wants
to play happy to your vigil at this Indiana pond.