For Gaza

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to enjoy fireworks. It takes time to re-adjust to the smell of smoke and the sound of things exploding.

I watched the fireworks tonight dutifully, because people say I am morose and prone to insufferable moods—the kind of moods that do not enable them to enjoy national rituals. These holidays give them temporary purpose, or at least make them very drunk and fat and satisfied. I haven’t given a Christmas gift in ages. I haven’t sent a card in longer than that.

It was very, very cold outside, which made my face burn and my eyeballs leak water like tears. A Starbucks van was giving out free coffee in tiny paper cups.

The explosions looked like ice cream to me. If I had the sound on mute, I would have narrated the following: Vanilla White Phosphorus. Neapolitan New Year Napalm. Cherry Cluster Bomb.

When I find myself in these precarious situations I look to children for cues. A little one bundled up in synthetic stuffing from head to toe jumped up and down and screamed for joy. She thought ice cream was falling from the sky, too.

I wonder at what point the sounds of things exploding becomes less delightful and more horrifying. Survivors never forget the smell of carbon and sulfur and the sound of solid things disintegrating. The guts inside feel like metal and cold water.

My little friend seems to have adjusted better than me.

I remember when a fresh Marine first hears the sound of a detonating hand grenade. He jumps in his seat and loses his breath like someone has just punched him in the gut. Then he looks around for affirmation, which he never receives. But he adjusts.

When I see the children hopping up and down I think that it must be okay for things to go boom in the sky. Pretty colors fragment in a dozen directions, and a tail of smoke drifts down to the earth.

Today’s early snow has frozen beneath thousands of drunken feet. I smell booze.

And smoke.