Lungs, heavy with heat, labor.
The boundaries of the body
edge themselves with sweat, like lines
drawn on walls when no one looked,
salt graffiti spray-painted
at the hairline, around lips,
trickling below the belt, spine,
around wrists and cuffed ankles.
This is an aberration.
We were, we are, unprepared.
This intrusion of August
into April is not quite
comforting. Grass struggles thru
last year’s dead leaves, bulbs sprouting,
tulips not a handspan high
and spear-pointed with no blooms.
All things green try to catch up
with the heat, anxious as if
late for a midterm exam
taken the first week of class.
This is not a slow melting,
a bursting of what’s ready
and ripe. This is unsettling,
an unstable betrayal.
Rosefire Rising 