Category: heat (Issue No. III)

In the heat of a sun too seldom felt

Elspeth Wilson

Close your eyes and think of a time where you felt happy
—an invitation with no expectation of RSVP
to get away from this place. In the mind,
a time where I was exactly like other girls
flanked by two artworks of emotion and potential
to dance in the pattern of sprinklers and laugh
with the joy of the unobserved
to try to fit into each others’ bikinis and lose all our air in laughter and tightness
to eat cherries and spit the stones at
each others’ breasts
to catch something fleeting
on the beat of a sun setting, heat draining
away from burnt legs like stones
weighing us down, bringing us back
as the evening cooled and the oozing shadows meant
it was time to cloak ourselves again.

Elspeth Wilson

A cold glass of water against this heat

Laurie Koensgen

I can’t let it rest
on the table without
causing a ring—

a humid halo,
a planet’s misty caul,
concentric swells a fish makes
in the stillness
of a lake

or, as if you wet your finger
in the pool of your tongue
and circle my glass’s rim
until it performs a singing bowl’s
holy solo.

My fingers trace
the wet ring on my thigh.
Glass in hand, I wait for you.

Laurie Koensgen

how to swim

Rick White

don’t let me interrupt myself steve
i’m a motherfucking serial killer
holy blast radius
pharmaceutical winter

i’m your haunted parentheticals
your white noise ghost
chewing on waves of interference
dancing on the tips of useless prose

i’ve stared down xanax nightmares
in taxidermy bars
i’m the locum doctor
in the for-your-own-good ward

i’ve danced with graceless liars
foxed the chickens in
belted strapped and tripwired
til the filaments go dim

so fill me to the widest part
so i have room to breathe
sanctify your indiscretions
wrought beautifully in porcelain

wake me up in gardens made of night time
beat me til my hands and feet cave in
meet me by a moonlit pool at midnight
i’ll teach you how to swim

Rick White

That Summer We Knew Each Other

Kassandra Montag

Almost every weekend that summer,
you would join me on the porch at dusk.
As the night wore on we could see a raccoon
or possum stalking past, nothing visible
but its eyes and the silhouette of fur.

We are the sum of our parts, you would say.
Or, I am not living, only existing.

Words nothing like your flannel shirt,
or the glow of the streetlights,
or the thick scent of pine trees.

That August two hard rains fell.
Before and after heat hung in the air
like claws stuck in prey and steam caught in my throat.

I heard yesterday that you got a job
with a logging company up north.
That you don’t speak to many people.
You read books, smoke, sit on your porch at night.

Once that August I opened your cedar box
to reach for a cigar and when I looked up
you were watching me.

Your look reminded me of a photo
I saw earlier that summer in a psychiatric museum.
The man was chained to a wall with an iron ring
around his neck, his feet bound with cloth.

An hour before the photo he may have been spun in a cage
or shaken or kicked or doused with water,
and still he remained tucked away.
He stared at the camera with his deep-set eyes

Please, interfere with me.

Kassandra Montag

Declaration

Megha Sood

I draw that circle of protection around me
keeping me safe,
breathing in the shadows
of simmering love
and gulping the elixir
the concoction of love;
the reason for my sustenance,
like those mahogany swinging in the wild.

The nape of my neck
feeling the apricity
a warm embrace;
as if the skin speaks of your love
the warm undulation to which
my heaving chest conforms
a feeling so sublime.

The symphony to which my breast syncopates
you are carved inside my soul
deeply seeded,
like those endless moles
which your gelid fingers counted
in the frothy moonlight
on my undulating back.

As it rises and falls back with passion
that smoldering aroma,
of your breath interlaced with mine.
It births a thousand poem
those gyrating hips,
in that naked moment
when your heart
called me, mine.

Megha Sood

Heart of the Fire

Essie Dee

Shades of violet in the sky
Sunset
Iridescent patio lights
Dance in a gentle breeze
Cicadas and crickets sing love songs
Before the bass kicks in
Low and pulsing
An engaged heartbeat
Whoops of joy, glasses clink
Cheers to a long weekend
Campfire set, bodies sway
Volume and bottle count steadily increase
A few too many had
Eyes meet through smokey haze
Curve of lip, raised eyebrow
A desired understanding
An approach, flickers of light
Cast shadows on his face, in her eyes
Two move to the music
Hands and forms press into one another
In the background cheers erupt
Acknowledging the inevitable
But they do not hear
Their song is heartbeat, quick breath and thoughts
Of what may be on a sticky summer night

Essie Dee