Fireworks

When you get back
And you’ve got time left on your hands
Guess you drive around the lake
Tires grazing the borderlands
Of the shore that you wish
You were sure was in De Moines
Telling dad about the medals
All the medals you enjoyed
And I’d say “I won them all
Except for one, dad
Except for one
I won every single medal
Except for courage, dad
Except that one.”

Drive over to Sally’s
Where she’s out mowing the lawn;
Husband safe inside the house
She’s got a lazy red blouse on
And we’d stop, and we’d talk
And I brag and don’t say anything about medals of valor;
About medals of courage

And she laughs, and we smile, and we sit for a while
But there’s no fireworks, no fireworks, around us
There’s no fireworks, no fireworks around us

Drive through a McDonalds
Spending hours on the line
Telling stories through the speakers
Some demented kind of shrine
And the voice says to cry, so you cry
And you think about those medals of valor;
Those medals of courage

And the voice says to pay
So you pay, and you leave
But there’s no fireworks, no fireworks around us
There’s no fireworks, no fireworks around us

And all at once you're back
In a lake around the world
Your friend is drowning
They go on drowning in a lake made of shit
And you try to pull him out, and flares go off and colors fly

And you reach to pull
And you give up, and flares go off
And he dies, and he dies, and he dies, and he dies, and he

But there are fireworks, fireworks around us
There are fireworks, fireworks around us

When you get back
With more than time left on your hands
And your dad’s been dead for years
No one named Sally understands
So you drive around the lake
You were sure was in De Moines;
Not thinking about colors, or any medals anymore