Heat Dome
Poetry
King James’s son suffered
a cardiac arrest at practice;
but, good news, he’s now stable.
On the phone, my mother cried
about her A1C numbers running
away: she’ll eat an entire bag of Skinny
Pop watching her programs, in one sitting.
“You don’t have OCD. You’re so fit.
Have you ever bought tofu? Yes?
How do you cook it?”
In 1987 the average low in Phoenix
was 81 degrees, then in 1993 it was 93,
and today it’s 97. A man without a home,
58, who’s lived on the streets for 20 years,
says it’s 102 at 6:00 AM.
If I had any self-control, I’d be outside
until I could be mistaken for a cormorant
having just emerged from a retention pond,
wings spread and drying for flight. She can’t
adopt her new walking regimen because
of a stationary heat dome; she tried getting up
at 5:30 but didn’t fall asleep until 4:30. “OCD,
and Insomnia. And Sleep Apnea.”
Lately, I’m being told more frequently I stop breathing
on the couch after Jeopardy. My wife tells me to shut up.
She likes to read and loves our dog’s snug silence occasionally
interrupted by the whimperings of what has to be
an adorable chase dream.
Oh, and gas prices are up.
Refineries report reduced
production because of the strain
of the sun as it peers infinitesimally
more and more through
thin cosmic curtains.
“With broccoli, onions, and brown rice?
Oh, I would except I need gravy smothering
it and those don’t taste right together. Plus,
it’s full of carbohydrates and sodium — all that
white flour and salt. More water?
“Oh, I drink glass after glass with Crystal Light,
but I have to stop because of the Aspartame.
You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
There’s cancer everywhere.”
In Greece, a water bombing plane crashed
into a hillside as it tried to help extinguish
a wildfire. The climate scientist, on before
the morning entertainment block, claims
the jet stream can’t sink to bring relief
to the brink of home. We know this
using the principles of quantum mechanics,
pioneered in the early 1900s, the behavior
of matter at the smallest scale.
A buoy in Manatee Bay measured the temperature:
101. “Did you know, Migg, that’s how hot
a hot tub should be?”
How could this happen to Bronny, only 18?
An electrical malfunction in the heart amid
a fortune of prayers, blockbusters, and road trips?
“It turns out, Mom, the world isn’t as big
as we’d hoped. According to one study, the universe
is expanding so fast our souls will be at rest
only when they, like light, cannot escape.”
