Category: heat (Issue No. III)

Into the Fire

Rickey Rivers Jr.

Maybe you should walk with me?
Into the fire, my love we’ll burn but not implode.

We will become immortal in the flame.
We will burn bright and roar, lighting the towns around us.

Our heat will be felt by the sun and the smoke will reveal our shadows.

You should walk with me there into the greatness of an ember.
Cinders in reflection carry the burning bliss.

Rickey Rivers Jr.

Brimstone

Frances Boyle

He smoulders over perfidy and putrefaction. My brother,
back from saving the world. He witnessed children
made to work like slaves in emerald mines in Brazil,
forests stripped and water polluted, while hired thugs
‘keep peace’ for multinationals. Poison, he tells me,
gets papered over with silky PR, policies and promises.
Soldier of no fortune, he calls himself, bringing his fervent
crusader gaze to my small orbit of life and compromise.

We were raised country, with church on Sundays
but I haven’t been for years. The old stories seemed
suspect when it came to women: Eve’s bad rap;
and how about Lot’s wife? Turned to salt, but all she did
was look back to check on friends, a home she cherished,
the hearth she had kindled to a household. All left instead
when angels took her by the hand, to a rain of burning sulphur.

So, it’s his talk of hellfire and brimstone that shocks me
more than his bearded pallor, the weary approximation
of the easy ways we used to have. The new processing
plant down the road he calls a boil on the county’s ass,
a festering furuncle. Hyperbole to make me smile,
but his eyes are animate with righteous blaze.

He wants to cut losses, says the township’s in ruination,
like the planet. Little worth in our old home, just four walls,
gnarled fruit trees and fields gone fallow in nursing home years.
I see green on the farm pond brilliant as gemstones, while he
sniffs the fetid stench of scum, another scourge on the land.

I’m the one who’s taking the house in hand. I sweep
and scrub, wash walls and light fixtures, haul junk
to the dump by the truckload. I walk the orchard, ponder
how I might prune the topiary tangle of his intensity,
snip it back to the shape of the brother I knew. This farm
is our legacy. I can’t hover at an auction, watch alone
as our parents’ treasures sell. I guess I’m becoming
sentimental; I need us both to take just one look back.

Frances Boyle

11.52PM, AND PINING

Jerry Chiemeke

(for “Serah”)

Your eyelids make for shelter
and the expulsion of sound
from your vocal chords
remind me of the evening
I swore that your breathing
was the one alarm I looked
forward to waking up to.
I can’t tell what keeps you warm
on evenings where mattresses
seem four times larger
but the only thing I want
wrapped around you
tighter than your beads
is my arms.
I want to trade
your nose ring
for the front tip of my lips
so I can feel the heat
of your breath on my chin
and know where to flow from
when I decide to find out
what flavours of lip gloss
you have been trying out lately.

I send my mind on voyages
as I yearn to stumble on ways
to get around the diameters of you,
there are no memories
out here to attempt
confusing themselves with dreams
but I reach out for any
faint images that would
grace me with an idea
of what it would feel like
to get lost in you while
searching for gold in damp places.

Slow breathing, grabbing,
incoherent tones that speak of discovery,
Torsos learning the art of symmetry,
Colliding pulse rates, indicative
of hearts that won’t mind being in sync
toes finding space to
stretch across each other
Oxygen traded for units of carbon
eyes engaged in rendezvous
with just enough room
for sweaty noses to fall in warm embrace.

These days I find it hard
to tell what is good for me
or what is just thorns guised as pineapples
but I can say for sure
that I know where my head
craves to be
under bulbless rooms by 11.52pm,
and when the world stops
leaving my mouth agape
as my hair brushes the clouds
I am fully aware of
the two brown rocks
that I want to be seen clutching
solemnly in my final hours.

Jerry Chiemeke

First Burn

Jeff Burt

How good to burn the mounds of maple leaves
and twigs, to bend the sky with smoke,

to spin an earthly contrail that neighbors
and dogs can trace to the rake’s teeth,

to enjoy the leafy filters that strained the light
to make oxygen and sugar, balance my needs with theirs,

warm the front of my jeans and leave the backside cool
as I stand face into the billowing smoke

thanking the maples for my breath, my warmth,
the little hard candy shifted by my tongue.

Jeff Burt

Oracle

Charles Venable

god never withheld visions
even joseph owned a bronze bowl
for scrying
imagine
it filled with burnt bones
am i still the boy
my brothers threw in the hole?

pareidola

man’s tendency to see patterns
where there are none
this finger bone reveals
his brothers are alive
this knuckle tells him
throw benjamin in prison

and grow up like his father
a deceiver
lord over his brothers
set above them
in famine
banished to this land
their descendants enslaved

but god sends messages
to men like moses
signs like the burning bush
demand
we remove our shoes and sandals
this is holy ground
it says
cinders burn bare feet.

apophenia

man’s curse to see connections
where there are none
if a bush
combusts
speaks
it might be god
go free his people from bondage

and grow up a prophet
but for forty years
in the wilderness
wander
a generation dies
punishment
for listening to a burning bush

or listening to a talking donkey
like balaam
the oracle called to curse israel
he did the wise thing
struck it with his staff
just in case
it wasn’t a sign of

schizophrenia

man’s disease to hear voices
where there are none
or for balaam
god’s voice
it was wise to obey
a talking donkey.

and grow up forgotten,
save sunday school lessons
he is the fool
the donkey saw
an angel on the road
he didn’t know

i asked god
for a vision of the future,
no bronze bowl
no burning bush
no talking donkey
i prayed and prayed
and prayed

Charles Venable

From the Sky to the Ground

Devon Marsh

I

A man knelt in a dry field.
He accused a handful of dirt.
The soil argued little.

Brittle clods dissolved
into fine dust. The man
stood, brushed his hands,

stared at the bright field.
Parallel rows converged
toward a line of trees.

Its far edge shimmered.
A water tower glared
around a town’s name.

The man turned his back
on the tower, the town,
the field, the empty sky.

II

The man crossed his yard, reached his house,
stepped across his own initials and his father’s.
He climbed concrete steps to the porch.
He waited for the heat to subside.

Heat’s full tide lapped motionless limbs,
inundated the house. Doors and windows
stood open, inviting any breeze. In still rooms,
heat settled in stagnant pools.

III

Shadows crept into the void of departing light.
They met in open places, conspired,
grew strong. As heat and light ebbed,
a thermal essence remained.

Night voices grew bold. They talked
among themselves, confident, open.
Insect dialects recounted
stories of summer and drought;
of patience; the role of extremes
in the hard maintenance of averages.
The voices talked at length,
and the man on his porch
listened for mention of rain.

IV

Heat slept in stillness, motionless,
a calm sea. It stirred in the early hours
to welcome pink and orange light, a tide
drawing strength from the sun. It surged,
broke into day, swept across the land.
Heat flowed under trees, through open windows,
woke the man and his wife. When it reached
the limits of land and air, it grew deep.
The man rose. He waded into another day.

V

Mid-morning, unbearable sun. The man
closed the hood of his truck, removed his cap.
Sweat stung the corners of his eyes.
He squinted at the bright field,
rows of fading plants. Beyond,
the water tower stood resolute, but
grayer than the day before, its glare dispersed.
The man studied the scene, replaced his cap,
walked to the house for relief.

VI

The man’s wife emerged from relative darkness.
He and she faced each other across the porch.

Thought I’d do some shelling, she said.
Want to sit with me a while?

Yeah. I’ll get back to the truck
when the sun ain’t on it.

His wife placed a paper bag full of beans
beside her rocker, set a bowl and empty bag
in the seat, turned to go back inside.

How about some tea?

That would hit the spot.
He sat, hung his hat on the stile.

His wife disappeared into sounds.
The refrigerator door swept open,
popped shut.
Ice cubes cracked from trays,
clinked into glasses,
crackled when tea startled them.
A knife snapped twice on a board,
cut two pieces of lemon.
Refrigerator door again,
pitcher and lemon returned to cool refuge.

The man’s wife stepped onto the porch.
She handed him a glass, placed hers
on the table between them.
She sat and arranged her work.

The man took a long swallow,
balanced his glass on the arm of his chair.
Tea tasted good and strong, smelled crisp and bright.
Condensation ran onto the man’s fingers.

Another hot one, the woman said.

Today’s another scorcher.

Seems muggy, too. That makes it worse.

I wish the mugginess would decide to cloud up
and give us some rain.

The woman’s nimble hands shelled beans into the bowl,
discarded husks into the paper bag. Think it will?

Hard to say.
He rattled ice, took another swallow.
If it stays muggy it may come up a cloud
somewhere, this afternoon or tomorrow.
No telling.

Dull crumps
beat
a slow rhythm
as the woman
tossed aside
byproduct
of her work.

The man rocked to the cadence,
stared past the yard.
Staccato lines of stunted plants
ran to a tree line. Beyond, brightness
hazed and spread up,
curved back, the sky
a claustrophobic dome.

The woman appraised his face, tried
to think of what to say.
She shelled butterbeans from their pods,
pale green moons falling in soft beats
into the bowl in her lap.

I believe we might get a shower.

I don’t know, he said. I just don’t know.

VII

Breath, and music.
His wife respiring
and the song of nocturnal insects
pulled the man awake.

He lay without a sheet,
thought of his wife
and himself
exposed, dependent
on the night for comfort,
on the day for light,
the season for a crop.

Dependence stood in the room
haunting the night.
The man felt helpless
lying in the dark.

Light sweat draped his skin
like a caul. A caprice of night air
passed through the room.
Despite the heat, the man shivered.

He pulled up the sheet
to protect himself and his wife.
A fuller breeze followed,
inflating sheer curtains like sails.

The man drifted to join his wife.

VIII

The man rose before the sun.
He ate a hard biscuit, drank buttermilk.
He walked onto the porch,
out the screen door, down
the steps to the yard.
He approached his truck.
He set about tending a dying farm.

Heat washed over the land.
The ground grew hot, the air
stifled all impulse. By mid-morning
the man retired to his porch.

He sat as on the previous day
and the day before, and
he watched the trees shine
defiant green. Such still air.

Cicadas buzzed in one tree
and then another, singly,
not in the chorus of the night.
The man watched, listened. He heard
everything telling him to wait.

Drone of insects
caused the man to nod. Sleep.
He sat waking and dozing
into early afternoon.
His wife came to call him to lunch
but decided not to disturb him.
Instead she took a seat.

She looked at her husband, his head
bent forward as if listening to someone
pray. Then she looked across
the road at the field and the sky above.
She rested her tired eyes on a cloud.

The woman watched the cloud.
She prayed it would come their way
or pass before her husband woke.

A shadow drifted across the far trees
onto the field. It crossed the road
to meet tree shadows in the yard.
Silent lap of shadow on shadow
startled the insects, stopping their songs.
In the sudden quiet the man awoke,
puzzled at the silence and the field
that no longer blared midday glare.
He stared at the mounting cloud,
then looked to his wife. She smiled.

Looks like we might get some rain.

The man beheld a cumulus dreadnaught
floating in a deep new sky. Darkness
touched its hull down low. Brilliance
thrust upward, white billows piled on billows.
Air carried the cloud slowly, as if
it had the density of granite.
The mass and its shadow drifted
above the man’s field and his house.
From across the road, he received
the report of countless impacts.

IX

The man opened his door
to meet the rain
as it came into his yard.

His wife watched him reach
toward the first few drops.
They hesitated, assented, fell harder.

The man crossed the yard and road
to step into his field. Power and majesty
spoke in monosyllable raindrops
that blurred into words and into
a single word that meant possibility.

He said, “Lord, I’m
standing on a fine line.”
The din increased.
The cloud gave forth
a downpour.
Water washed anxiety
from the grateful man.
The ground darkened.

X

The man cried from the sky
to the ground, tears like rain.

Devon Marsh