Heat Index

Heat Index



i.

An hour 
before sunset

crickets loop  

both sides 
of the street

—a rattle
of constant recoil.



ii.

When memory sifts
the season, a tone 
too thin to measure

remains. Outside
it’s too hot for memory,

too humid for thought.

Even these half-dead
dandelions, scattered

around the entrance
of an abandoned Bank
of America, startle 

into the present. 



iii.

This far into August 
what doesn’t come undone?

Thunder brackets the lull.

A ribbon of gnats 
rotates around a street lamp.
 
The only relief is sleep.

And in the morning shadows 
evaporate 
before touching ground.

The mountain 
a shard of gravel
propped against the horizon. 

A bird or a cloud could dislodge it. 



iv.

I’m tired 
of living
window 
to window,

keeping time
by how dim
or how bright.

Sepia beams
cross and
recross the floor.

The darkness lengthens. 



v.

Night offered 
a moth

banging around 
a lamp.



vi.

When the mind 
consents to mirror

the pond’s surface 
suddenly still.

A reprieve 
from fragments,

summer’s 
insistence,

what punctures
stammering

sun, gauzy
wind. Let

vision catch
a wasp

braiding space 
between wrought

iron handrails 
in front of

the senior center.
Let vision

rove without 
a thought

to anchor it. 
All senses see. 



vii.

Now I’ve walked
far enough 

to locate 
where dusk 

begins, the
block where 

my world ends. 
Peeper trill

and electric 
insect whirr 

pump from 
overgrown grass

a liquor store’s
red neon 

signage stains.