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