That’s what my English professor asked us   

to consider, shortly before he died   

mid-semester of stomach cancer.  

Six years later, my grandfather passed  

on the weekend of the Fourth of July.  

The aunts hovered in the dusty living  

room. It was a test: who could act the most  

normal in a minefield of yellow stacks of  

newspapers and urine-stained carpet?  

On one hand, the affairs. On one hand,  

his penchant for debt. Digging through  

closets, my cousin pulled out a photo:   

a teenaged version of her mother and mine   

tumbled together on a pink bedspread, legs  

tangled like puppies. November was   

a wasteland to which I could never return.   

On the drive home, everywhere I looked   

along the interstate: fireworks, smoke.   

Smoke, fireworks.