Super-sized Series

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