Another Summer Romance
 
i.
A fiery question, it takes four months to answer
cool at the edges, toss and swelter at the center
 
Armageddon in the cow ponds
too hot to rest on
 
needs key lime, fresh beans
lives behind plate glass
 
in movies for the chill kaboom
in short sleeves, in linen
 
in dust that rises up behind a truck
in salt moisture in an armpit
 
with grit, belly flop, tide line,
tan line, wet curl
 
closer to the wire and the sun
the soles there burn like saints on fire.
 
ii
 
Survival in it depends on ice cream
and the speed of the post-vernal whoosh
 
that slickens a forearm
like honey, that manages the slide into Gomorrah
 
and Sodom’s flame; it stays out of the thick
breeze, ripe as a peach going rotten. 
 
Nevertheless, it is where chocolate
melts in your hand.  Afterward, don’t look back.
 
The dead are nothing to the quick.
Too savory.  Too solid.  Pillars of salt.