That week was so hot,
every shotgun house gasped,
windows flung,
screen doors striking wooden frames,
the squawk of rusty springs.

Touching skin felt like punishment
at first,
then penance,
then prayer.

We were thin, androgynous,
switching cut-off jeans,
sharing tank tops,
slick with sweat and shaved ice.

Strays ourselves,
barefoot thieves,
pirates of the quarter.

Hibiscus syrup stained our mouths
outside the Prytania,
where The Abyss flickered
and you cried like a boy
pretending he didn’t.

Inside your walk-up,
we dipped into quiet love
like bread in stew.

The radio’s crackle carried The Ink Spots,
which I recognized but couldn’t name.
You mouthed every note like a secret
you wanted me to guess.

Faint smiling lines near your eyes
from knowing,
like you’d seen me
long before we met,

Not woman,
not man,
just two bodies
leaning toward the same heat.

I wouldn't see your fall or your winter.
When the seasons change,
I’ll be gone,
back home,
watching rain from a train window,
each drop undoing what we were.

That last night,
you placed your key by the door.
I saw it,
watched it glint,
and said nothing.

The snails were climbing.
The air was too sweet.
You slept through goodbye.
I left the key where it lay.

I thought your eyes were warm like
the sun, but it was a pleasant lie;
you took all the heat and kindness of those
around you, pretended it was yours
until there was nothing left but bitter cold
and a line of broken hearts.

Even here, miles from town,
Joshua trees raise twisted arms,
like dancers locked in a song’s last note.

I lower myself,
not as a hero in the final act
but as an old father grown tired,
disc inflamed in the back,
knuckles scraped, work
too new for such an old body.

My youth spent bent in labor,
family cut away in anger.
Before I rot away in some churchyard,
I kneel with the fool’s wish
that the spring could wash it all from me.

The sun drags its red spine
across the ridge.
Stone steadies my shoulders in its cool grip
I dissolve into cloud,
a child warmed in arms of water,
its breath rising around me like ghosts.

Rain breaks, sudden and brief.
Creosote exhales its sly, eternal smell.
A cairn rises from the sand,
stones balanced without name-
its long shadow
measures this sand in silence.

Alkali on skin,
sulfur edge to air,
dust on tongue.

Gravity presses,
bone across rock,
and heat seams my back-
a mercy scraped thin,
hours from the outskirts.

A mountain hangs upside down
on the pool’s surface.
I drink not my reflection,
but the earth’s fire gone gentle.

It was Tuesday when I awoke, a cool 73 degrees.

It did not feel like summer.. only a temporary cold that stung when every other day has been arid as the desert.

The leaves showed the tiniest difference in color, a bit more yellow, scattered orange in a forest of vibrant green. And the smell of the bark was not as pleasant as it once was

When I grazed my hand on the black driveway while playing with my dear brother, my hand did not burn but instead it got scratched.

The water in the pond was just a bit colder, and the tides of the water were still. There was no breeze or moving force that usually created such intricate ripples.

It was beauty that had faded.

No one else really noticed it but I did. The sky was perfectly free of clouds but still the sun did not shine just as bright.

Smiles of the people on the sidewalk had gone, replaced by a stern expression that meant business. No one walked, it was now speed walking.

I touched the wrinkles on my hands, circled the ridges ingrained within my fingertips,

I felt the brown hairs on my arms and legs, how light they felt to the touch.

I gently poked my face and circled my eyes, breathing deeply for no reason other than chasing a feeling.

I remembered I had a routine and continued what little work needed to be done until day’s end.

Why did I feel today wasn’t real?

The next day, it was hot as ever, a burning 88 degrees, perfect for the pool. The smiles returned, and the brightness of the sun, and smell of the trees. I could not spot a single leaf of yellow or orange.

Then, I moved on with my day and forgot about my eyes, my skin, my hair and my face.

Like nothing ever happened.

Maybe nothing did happen, and I am overreacting.

Sixteen,
skin baked with brine and chlorine,
Top 40 hissing in my Walkman.

The girl found me first,
barefoot on the sandy trail,
tears spilling, pointing back to the sea.
A jellyfish sting, she couldn’t say it,
just clung to my leg like kelp.

Her mother rose from the dunes,
black bikini, tan lines,
two beach bags gnawing her wrists.
coconut oil, salt, chipped Jackie O shades.
She sighed, called the girl dramatic,
drifted home on scraping sandals.

Their world leaked into ours,
adjacent green bungalow
with fronds rattling like bones,
oranges sagging into white fuzz,
ATV ruts torn through the yard.
Rob polishing his Camaro,
coughing through pollen and Skoal,
swearing he saw a gator the size of a boat
slide into the canal at dusk.

She’d wander up, black bikini,
thighs shining,
shadow falling across my pool chair.
“Hey, you see my kid?” she’d ask,
leaning close,
the scent of Coppertone
and Marlboro Gold
fogging my thoughts.

I’d shift polite, church-boy manners,
“No, ma’am,”
She’d smile
at the clumsy hormones
rising off me
like steam.

Nights were bonfires,
oranges softening to flies,
Rob coughing in his driveway
while the pool light hummed and flickered.
Her shadow swam on the walls,
slick as the gator sliding into dusk.

Some people don’t feel the heat.
It is because of those who don’t feel the heat,
that the empty paddy fields turn green,
the roads and bylanes stay clean.
the vehicles of noisy people move without obstruction.
Because of those who don’t feel the heat,
non-motorized rickshaws still move,
hand-pulled carts still survive.
Because of them,
gift packets, perfumes, birthday cakes
reach homes on time.
Some people don’t feel the heat,
and perhaps because of them
– even though fire and smoke pour daily from your mouths –
the earth has not turned to ash,
the city has not yet perished.
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