Happy twenty-eighth to everyone!

 The Twenty-eighth Day of August
 
 
I know you celebrate this day too
With a planet of kids who quiver with glee
for the 28th of August. How lucky
We are to have the Twenty-Eighth
 
A very special day around the world
Like it’s our very last day together
Fires lit for dancing around and around
Wondering, arms raised, how to live
 
Today, 367,000 umbilical cords will be cut
Final signatures dashed onto papers for divorce
The last breath for some, 173,000 sized-up in
Shrouds, furnaces, caskets, pits and pyres
 
Such an important day we revel in
Parties in such lovely nations that we live
And other places, Chicago, one and a half
Persons will be murdered by handguns
 
Today, countless excruciating paper cuts
With nearly 500 organs lifted from cadavers
Set into the woozy chests of the unconscious
Who will awake to sons and daughters dancing
 
For me, it's just a day. I’ll take my coffee
With milk on the patio 6 days into retirement
Work the garden. Otherwise, on this special day
I will try, beyond all odds, to give birth