Summer Heat
Missouri Magic by Joe Cottonwood
At sunset we sit in dirt on our bottoms
(our rumps, little Lily calls them)
and we wait to watch Aunt Mildred’s
evening primrose bloom. And they do!
As if spring-loaded they open
and fling their scent, bright yellow.
After one night of blossom, Aunt Mildred
tells us, the petals will drop off.
“The original one night stand” she says,
a joke which is lost on Lily.
I’ve brought my girl from California
to see family and the simple glories
of the Midwest. She’s fascinated.
Across the lawn we behold winking fairy
lights rising to the trees. Fireflies!
“Do they like sugar?” Lily asks.
So we fill a jar with blinking bodies.
Add sugar. Make up a song:
Firefly, firefly
twinkle twinkle
With these sweets
we sprinkle sprinkle
“Do you hear me?” she asks.
The bugs seem bored. We let them go.
Heat lightning in a cloudless sky.
Locusts clatter like a freight train.
A whippoorwill calls with the music,
Lily decides, meteors should make.
This night so full of sounds, so darkly green,
so muggy with moisture we could hold
in our hands.
For a finale we wave sizzling sparklers
spelling our names against the stars
and then it’s bath time, bedtime.
No rockets. No boom. Just glory.
Fourth of July.
SUMMER, AND THE SYLLABLES SIMMER by Barbara Crooker
Too hot for clothes. Too humid for my hair,
which springs into frizz. Too hard on my pale
skin, which sizzles and burns. But oh, those
sweet nights, glittery with fireflies’ morse-coding
love letters on the grass. The music of katydids
and cicadas, the scent of a fresh-mowed lawn.
An icy martini, olives bobbing in the waves,
each sip lessening my grip, letting me remember
happier times. I know you’re not sitting here
next to me, but I sense your closeness. Tell me
what it’s like, over there, in the world of pure light.
Tell me how to go on.
First published in Xavier Poetry Review
Becalmed by Sarah Russell
Late afternoon in summer—
air so heavy I can’t move,
rumbling in the east and a flash
on the horizon. No birdsong,
fledglings gone from the oak
anchored in red clay. The grass
has surrendered, parched and longing.
The porch swing creaks under my weight,
breathing for me. There are chores,
but there are always chores. For now,
only stillness, asking what is next
without you.
First published in Red EFT Review
Chicago Heat by Tina Hacker
One day crawls
after another,
caught in a web
of heated air spun
by a voracious spider
fat and full
with the city’s feast
of white hot asphalt and steel.
Bloated tar oozing ichor
engulfs three-inch heels
of women, sticks to soles
of burley men rushing
to buses and trains.
August vacations to cooler climes.
speedboat outings,
air conditioning for those living
on Lake Shore Drive
as far from our street as heaven.
Two poems by Lynn White
The Summer Of ’89
The ice-cream man appeared
at frequent intervals
on the corner of the street
near the large grassy area
in summery Sochi.
He had no van
just a barrow
and two cardboard cartons
of paper wrapped briquettes.
He had no fridge,
didn’t need one,
everyone knew
Russian ice-cream
to be the best,
the best in the world
and so never got time to melt!
The evidence was all around.
The grass was full of people
enjoying the lazy sunshine,
sharing their music, smokes
and iced creamy kisses
in the Sochi summer.
The perimeter of the grass
was edged with signs.
”Keep Off The Grass”,
an English speaker translated.
She smiled.
“But we take no notice!”
First published in Fevers of the Mind, The Whiskey Mule Diner Anthology inspired by Tom Waits
Paddling
No one swam in the seas round Britain
when I was a child.
The water was empty beyond the edge
of the shore
even on the warmest of days.
Paddling was as adventurous as it got.
Nothing wetter was allowed,
Trousers rolled up,
skirts tucked in knickers
clothes to be protected from
the salt water waves.
Only then was paddling allowed
taking due care not to kick or jump,
taking due care not to let the wet waves
go too far.
First published by Arachne Press for Turn of the Tide Festival
The Ancient Air Conditioner Finally Gives Out by Judith Waller Carroll
Barely a breeze through the ill-fitting screen,
the heat drives us outside, slows us down,
makes the simplest things seem remarkable:
Tart, icy limeade on the front porch.
The dog sprawled in the damp earth
under the smoky-purple blooms
of the hydrangea. You
on the step beside me, one toe barely
touching mine, and later a spark of fireflies,
the sliver of moon in a darkening sky.
from Walking in Early September
Arboretum by Laurie Byro
Wishing hadn’t sustained us, all summer the heat
rose from the trees like smoke. Wasted days, I stood
under them wanting something, not sure what exactly.
An abandoned nest, a pine-cone still sticky
with all its memories, none of the trees flowered,
they weren’t like that, but we had asked so little
of the world. Even if this wasn’t the right kind
of happiness. I wondered why couldn’t something
I wished on (a pine-cone shaped like a star) once
fulfill its promise? When the rebel apple reaches me
often it is bruised, half-rotted, long past its usefulness..
This bitter-orange leaf still warm with its message
from the sun, still has the nerve to meander unconvinced
as I am, far from the place where I started, brushing past
my willing hand
PROMISES OF RAIN by Lorraine Caputo
All summer we wait
watching sullen clouds
rumble upon the horizon
Once & again a few
drops tease scarring
the parched soil our parched souls
In the yellowing dusk we sit
listening to the dry
hum of cicadas
Once & again I wander
away from my dreams tasting
blue lightning the burnt night
All summer we wait
hoping for the promise of rain
first published in: Seeding the Snow
After the Hottest Heat Wave in Earth’s History by Rachael Ikins
Piled sock wads and shed shorts mumble in corners.
Shoes stepped-out-of
shamble near doorways.
Drying towels smell of mold,
and heat stored in unexpected places,
a box of cookies exhales warmth when
you open the flaps.
You’ve been in the pool
in the shower,
kept your hair soaked,
run naked through the golf course sprinklers at dawn,
expect mushrooms to sprout from your navel.
Packets of neatly embalmed hibiscus blossoms
drop into puddles. Float, so many perfect,
wrapped mermaids
as lovely dead as when they spread themselves
in the sun
waiting for love’s juice.
You dove through walls of water,
cartwheeled across the garden
spouting books from every orifice,
heart pounded a distant engine
you could never quite hear,
but you felt it through your skin.
Yes, there are wonders, cactus buds,
blackberries bigger than nipples,
hummingbirds’ faces filled with gladiolus,
but
your friend is still dying. Tiny cells chase each other
up and down the highway, infiltrate her membranes,
ants in a sugar bowl. You keep driving even though
you can’t see the end,
even though the roar of water is so loud
you can’t hear the destination. You do your best
to arrive in time because that, the flower packets-
all there is.
A moment of lust blinked to ashes,
memory of a summer lake
where you two almost intersected
so many times
on a different planet
back when winters buried the castle on the hill
in deep
blue
snow.
I feel my temperature rising, Elvis sings by Sharon Waller Knutson
as he smirks and swivels
on my cell phone video
and I suck ice chips
between parched lips
as the sun sizzles
and the saguaros
and mesquite melt
like marshmallows
and chocolate mints.
Help me, I'm flamin',
I
must be a 109, mmm
Burnin', burnin', burnin'
and
nothing can cool me, yeah
I just might turn into smoke, Elvis sings.
Memphis was flaming hot
when Elvis’s heart stopped
Aug. 16, 1977 at Graceland
at the age of forty-two
while I was burning up
under the Mexican sun
in San Miguel de Allende
where there were no phones,
radio or TV. I didn’t hear
the news of the King’s death
until two weeks later in Laredo
when I renewed my student visa.
I may be boiling
in triple digit
temperatures
in the Arizona desert
as a helicopter dangling
a bucket of water flies
overhead to put out
the fire burning up
the forest, but no one,
including me,
is dying today.
For Solomon by Wilda Morris
What will you do this summer
on a hot and sunny day?
Will you take a ball or a wagon
and go outside to play?
Will you pretend you are a cowboy,
a sailor or a fireman?
Will you dress like a superhero,
like Spiderman or Batman?
Will you beg to go swimming
and splashing in a pool,
promising to behave and follow
every safety rule?
Would rather climb a tree
or read a good book?
Will you ask to take a hike
or help your mother cook?
Will you get way too sweaty
if you go for an afternoon run?
Whatever you do this summer
I hope you have lots of fun
