Fireworks
The fireworks came from the water, or so he thought,
lighting a cigarette with an old matchbox,
wishing he could light it off his girlfriend’s cheek,
and leave her skin prickling with the heat.
Did it mean a thing? Closing gaps in the crowd,
lights flashing crackling in unison above,
his hand limp in her squeeze,
something close to honey through the trees.
Ears nipped by the whistle
of two rockets running in parallel.
“I’m going in”, he says, taking his shoes off
and leaving them by the side of the bank.
She watches as he wades,
ripples splaying off
his legs swallowed almost whole
by the water layered with gold
and the body of a ground unseen,
hidden by a sky upside down.
Rainbows melt around his feet –
or at least that was how it seemed.
Robert Van Egghen is a UEA graduate, now working as an English teacher in Japan. His poetry and journalism have appeared in various publications. Someone once called him “the lovechild of Keats and Jimmy Carr”. He’s not sure if he likes that.