In the heat, even the rooster hesitates,
to break the stillness that passes for cool.
Even he is reluctant to call the sun
and prod the day into being.
The heat makes sluggish the brash and bold,
they recalibrate, calculate the prudence of lying low —
bellies pressed against the earth to soak in some of the night’s cool gift.
I opened the doors hours before the sun,
the air barely stirred, just a trickle of wind,
not even enough to to shoulder the room’s air aside.
As the heat builds, as the days pass, outside — inside, day — night,
all of us feel the physical presence of heat like a hand,
like a wall, settling, compressing, filling every space until we labor to breathe.