Summertime

August heat breathes heavy on the land, huge hands holding everything down like clay too wet to shape.
I step out the door to walk the dog and throw myself into this miasma, almost expecting to find myself floating.
We move slowly, the dog and I. He raises his nose, sniffing for hidden pleasures.
I crinkle my nose too. Traces of the woman who came before me lie on the top levels,
Her musky sweetness wavering like a flying carpet in the heat currents above my sidewalk.

I can barely see. The water in my eyes is burning, tearing up, dripping down my nose in tiny rivulets.
A waterfall cascades down my back and I feel my shirt molding itself against me.
I am human mache, turning from skin and bones into water and mush, a project by Lady Summer,
Done on a hot August night in the heartland,
On a night too hot to breathe, when arms and legs succumb to heaviness and almost cease to move.

Woman and dog swimming, superannuated and slow, sucked down by currents of torpidity
Exhaust from the cars swarming around us, bile rising in my throat.
The dog's tongue begins to loll from the side of his little black lips
And we turn back, struggling to climb out of this pit
Hoping to crawl out before it is too late.

Stepping into the foyer and climbing the steps, I am amazed at the coolness.
Places once too hot to bear become an oasis of shivery delight, a place of hope and salvation.
Back in the apartment I peel the clothes from my body one layer at a time,
Sweat slick skin seeming to have bonded permanently with each one.
I do not envy the dog his heavy fur coat.

If it were mine I would shave the hairs from my skin without flinching,
But instead I throw myself into the shower
And what once seemed tortuously cold is now a welcome respite.
Summertime, clutched in the misty eyed bosom of the heartland.
And all I can think of is winter and how I ache for her frosty glare.