Visceral Response

I concentrate on trying not to sweat.
You may find this hard to believe
But when I speak, I bruise my tongue.
This is me now, talking through the pain.

Another Fourth of July come and gone,
And as soon as dusk comes I make my escape.
I cannot bear the firecrackers.
No matter how many summers I’ve lived,

I will never be able to get used to that sound,
to suppress the urge to jump.
I wonder if it’s a weird genetic throwback
to a wilder time, when loud noises meant things with teeth,

rival tribes come with clubs, or some past life trauma
come to haunt me, episodes of trench warfare and Gatling guns
in high summer. The storms, whether fire or rain, are all the same.
There’s this sensation like a cricket in my ear,

Like my head is being held underwater,
the infernal shifting of pressures.
I am attuned to the earth like a burrowing animal,
aware of every sift and drop,

but otherwise blind. My legs are sandbags
stacked against no levy, hot and hard
beneath sheets that cling like cheesecloth.
My wrist-bones are a tuning fork,

Thrumming at the approach. The lightning rod of my spine
flares white, shoots its sparks into my hands,
garlands my nerves with bunting and razor wire,
explodes behind my eyes. Why won’t it break already?

My response to it so primal there isn’t even a word for it.
What does the thunder have to say to dirt?
What does the wind confide, so determined to displace
silence from a cavern? So eager to fill emptiness

before it’s gone again. Pyrotechnic smoke will fade
from spacious skies before their ghostly imprints
are gone from inside my lids. And my ringing ears
toll the opposite of victory.