(Poem) Labor Day: Thank Your Local Fire Hydrant

Hey, it’s Labor Day!

The day we dance

So that we can dance

With no hard work

With no off-timed

Time-offs

No pied piper to pay

No

I would rather consume

A windsill pie

A breeze that wipes my forehead

In the remaining heat

Dropping promises

Of autumn juices

So sweet

Swapping the bitter times

For bitter drinks

So today

Why not get your kid

Bring them to the roller rink

And skate in figure

Can’t be late to work

8:00 coffee + mornings hate

And turn that into

A spark of fate

As on a walk

You turn a corner

And spot the true hero of today’s holiday:

The American fire hydrant.

Indeed, while some may look more washed-out than others,

What you don’t take from your first impression of these marvellous machines, which contain the potential for volatile explosions of H2O, which provide a municipal necessity for firefighters, which stand there solid like a sentinel of steel watching majestically over the street, like an oddly-shaped, abstract, garden gnome that belongs to the garden of nobody, comes mostly in cherry, lemon, grape, and mystery flavors, are the flagship graffitti tagging-grounds for the piss of our beloved canine companions, jut out haphazardly in the concrete jungle, become sources of water-blasting entertainment for booming block parties gone rogue, are the enemy of Pac-Man, are connoted with both justices of modern-day firefighting as much as historical injustices of violence in the Civil Rights period, whose official mascot is named Pluggie, are what make cities look like cities, make a lowercase t-shape, might look good in a sweater and a beanie, and sometimes, a little like there’s just a little too much…shaft exposed?

I love them; they make me sick.

That’s why we get the day: to gaze at those delightful and dreadful red rods of spray

Gushing water pumped freely

From water towers that

Look poised to blast off to the moon

Like an extra-terrestrial spacecraft

Yes,

Today I am free today

No labor, just love.

Labor? That’s not for me.

A dollar a day? Not today.

My boss is out to lunch; today, I’m staying in

Looking peacefully out a window

Dreaming up an epigraph:

THANK YOU FIRE HYDRANTS

FOR ALL YOUR HARD WORK