Heatwave
Always better to focus on
Blue dolphins & Bushbabies,
Secret gardens & girl spies- she too
a girl spy, at the banister last night,
her breath catching on the word
“choose.”
August: its shimmering, vaselined
heat-ghosts hovering
above car hoods &
empty sidewalks.
Better to draw the dusty curtains, retreat
to the one air-conditioned room
in the house, her parents’ room.
Here, the hours pass elsewhere.
Outside
the cicadas’ cries swell in fury or
lust, then
subside. Crescendo,
then dwindle.
-The rhythm of battles,
& ballads,
not unlike
the sounds competing
from the rooms below.
Soon the clang-clang of
the ice-cream man.
She will close her book & stumble dazed
out into the stupefying heat, towards
Banana Bombpops, or better:
Drumsticks
She sucks the good stuff out, leaves
the cone behind.
The cicadas leave their empty shells
on the trees &
the girl will gently
pluck one off, place it on her shoulder
where it clings, as if
still containing life,
but weightless.
She will make her way back into the house,
to the table with sweating glasses & grey vegetables,
and meatloaf.
The table where everyone pretends
that the sounds she heard last night
were never made at all.
