Heat

Sat back in a chair,
mid-day
summer heat,
it’s all burning up,
choked up,
silent summer smoke.

Black metal roasting
the seat of your pants.
there are no birds
on these wires,

out far,
somewhere in the distance
out of sight
you can hear them
pressing together
pressing sputtered air
out of their intense fragile lungs
their thin bones flexing uncontrollably

but you can’t see them.

The wires are a thin line gradient
from deep black against blue freedom
to a silver-white almost blinding gleam,
something unnatural
something man-made

and all this while
I’ve just been hearing the suburban heartbeat
cars ripping carbon monoxide into the atmosphere,

Everything is hot,
somehow unified
and
separate
at the same time.
a lurid undertone burns at the nostrils
and the bridge of the nose flexes
without anyones permission.

Plants grow in their respective places,
people drive on their respective sides of the road,
and one olive man walks through a bed of fiery gravel
burning along the side of the concrete walk,

Who can say why.
Possibly,
if for no other reason,
to break the pattern.