Heat

Walk the sidewalks in July,
side-step hot blisters of tar
and my city will surprise you,
icy air exhaled through glass doors wide open,
cool mouth of a cave wrapped in neon vines
and rusty iron branching
toward sun.

Wade through sidewalks’ iridescent heat
and my city will lick the back of your neck,
cold drips falling fifteen, twenty stories,
corrugated roar of a silver box churning air
that chills the sweat on a strangers’ salty back,
there on the mountaintop
above you.

Walk the sidewalks longer,
heat pummels with heavy paws,
windows propped by fans,
hot air in a hurry, TV murmuring
in a dark room, someone sitting still
as a rabbit in tall grass,
stalked by heat.

My city has its captives,
swathed in heat behind deli counters,
steering wheels
and cheap hollow doors.
Earth is spinning closer to the sun,
my city embedded for the ride,
steel beams sunk into bedrock,
cables popping and swinging,
cash registers blinking,
conveyer belt clothes at the dry cleaner’s
dipping and rising with carnivalesque
abandon.

I am walking the sidewalks,
eyes watering with heat.
I am counting my blessings
and mistakes,
remembering a lake,
the soothing ecstasy of immersion,
someone I loved
who swam with me there.

Lynn McGee