Sky Flowers

This piece attempts to subvert the common and cliched and find new images.

Flowers in the sky,
blooming Fourth
eruptions which set the neighbor's big, black dog
to tearing out his ten-year lungs
and throwing yellow lightning howls
to sulfur shadow.

What am I looking for?
Lemon chrysanthemums—
a gift from my father,
my first potted plant,
rushed in silence up carpeted steps
by a girl in a purple LEE sweater.

Violets in the back yard
called weeds. Things growing
in the heart. Kill with herbicide
and leave the lawn
brilliant, flashing green.

July is
a million dying things
and memories
hiding under rocks.