52/465-466: Immodest Heat
Jun. 14th, 2026 01:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rejectomorphOnly just now have I been able to open the windows and turn on the fan, as it has taken this long for enough of the day's heat to leave the night air that it is cooler outside than in my air conditioned apartment. That's 79 degrees, to be exact. I won't spend enough to make it cooler in here.
Saturday I got up way too early in the morning, then had to take an afternoon nap which didn't end until almost seven o'clock. Then I fried a potato and an onion for dinner, later augmenting them with a sandwich. On the whole I didn't suffer too much from the heat, though I certainly didn't enjoy it. Monday is to be the peak of this heat wave, so if I make it through that my nephew probably wont have to arrange a funeral for me just yet. He'll be glad. Funerals are a hassle.
I keep forgetting to mention that the bird who was singing in my driveway every night for the last several weeks has vanished. It's strange not to hear him when I open the window at night. He was a mockingbird, and they only sing at night when they are looking for a mate, so I'm hoping that's what happened and they are off somewhere doing avian porn in a tree. However, we do have some feral cats around, and I can't help but fear the bird might have become a midnight snack for some agile feline. I like cats, but that bird sounded so happy, and I really miss his song. I'll just hope that next year his offspring will be out there singing.
Sunday Verse
by Albert Goldbarth
Years later they let him go. New evidence
—somebody's shoe and a letter, and then
another man confessed. So along with the cheap gray suit
and job ads that they all receive, he
had a brief note of apology. I suppose some people
go wild or bitter. But this is what happened to him:
we're sitting up way past midnight in August,
the six of us, hoping for a breeze. The air
might move in a solid block, as if pushed
by a streetsweeper's broom, but you couldn't call it
a breeze. Hot isn't the word. The stars
only make the sky a sore throat. And one of us,
Sally maybe, says we must be dead because
it's hell for sure, and the rest of us laugh, but
he's been called far out of our bent little circle,
you can tell by his eyes, they're filled with the moon,
with the simple delight of seeing the moon touch all of us
all over without a bar in the way,
without the shadow of even one bar
to fall on the light like a nightstick.
Saturday I got up way too early in the morning, then had to take an afternoon nap which didn't end until almost seven o'clock. Then I fried a potato and an onion for dinner, later augmenting them with a sandwich. On the whole I didn't suffer too much from the heat, though I certainly didn't enjoy it. Monday is to be the peak of this heat wave, so if I make it through that my nephew probably wont have to arrange a funeral for me just yet. He'll be glad. Funerals are a hassle.
I keep forgetting to mention that the bird who was singing in my driveway every night for the last several weeks has vanished. It's strange not to hear him when I open the window at night. He was a mockingbird, and they only sing at night when they are looking for a mate, so I'm hoping that's what happened and they are off somewhere doing avian porn in a tree. However, we do have some feral cats around, and I can't help but fear the bird might have become a midnight snack for some agile feline. I like cats, but that bird sounded so happy, and I really miss his song. I'll just hope that next year his offspring will be out there singing.
Sunday Verse
The More Modest the Definition of Heaven, the Oftener We're There
by Albert Goldbarth
Years later they let him go. New evidence
—somebody's shoe and a letter, and then
another man confessed. So along with the cheap gray suit
and job ads that they all receive, he
had a brief note of apology. I suppose some people
go wild or bitter. But this is what happened to him:
we're sitting up way past midnight in August,
the six of us, hoping for a breeze. The air
might move in a solid block, as if pushed
by a streetsweeper's broom, but you couldn't call it
a breeze. Hot isn't the word. The stars
only make the sky a sore throat. And one of us,
Sally maybe, says we must be dead because
it's hell for sure, and the rest of us laugh, but
he's been called far out of our bent little circle,
you can tell by his eyes, they're filled with the moon,
with the simple delight of seeing the moon touch all of us
all over without a bar in the way,
without the shadow of even one bar
to fall on the light like a nightstick.
