Air is thick in the summer.
Resting on your shoulders
until you eat it with a knife and fork.
Smells linger longer
and last late into firefly evenings.
Coffee this morning and gasoline
puddle, jumped by a little kid in
rain boots.
Greasy torpid rainbows strewn
across the pavement.
Ash, and dirty cigarette sand polishes the sidwalk
outside an office building.
Down, deep down town, where
the shinybright people and cars don’t go
a hydrant is firing impotently into the street.
Naked little aboriginal children
let the water wash them clean and free
from the heavy hot weight of the sun.
Block parties in the summer.