Benjamin Morris

Heat wave

In the photo under the headline
the two girls, chin-deep in the lake,
are grinning from one ear to the other,
their faces pressed together so tight

it looks as if one's mouth ends where
the other begins, a long unbroken chain
of milky teeth. It is scarcely eighty degrees
in that country, and they call it a heat wave.

Let me tell you what I know of heat:
I have seen the horizon bend and warp
as though turned, in a flash, to taffy;
I have seen trees uproot themselves

from the earth and crawl under each other
for shade. Where I call home you can hear
houses sigh and grumble as the glue
that binds them melts, or you can,

in the stillness of the early evening,
as the sun contemplates its sinking,
smell the cobwebs coughing into flame.
Downtown at noon, the buildings

shed all their windows and doors
and bend their spires to snag the passing
clouds¯this, this is what I know
of heat. O frail country, if this

is where desire has led you, if this
is what you want, then follow me
no further-for all I have to offer
are the shouts of two grown men

chasing after lightning, trying
to anchor the storm, as ten miles over
in the next parched parish
the shadow of a barn eats the black dog whole.