2006/restless

Restless sleep,
probably the heat.
We both parade
to the bathroom
all night long,
our bodies throwing
off covers and fluids
we drank to keep
cool.
You still wrap
yourself in the small
down throw,
when the fan
blows.
I don’t know
how you do
it.
I feel the heat
in my head,
occupying me
as though I am
a country.
I feel possessed
by it.
It is not the
sultry Southern
heat I grew up with
that slows things
down to an easy
crawl.
But the mean
heat of the West.
No good comes
of it.
Wildfires and
skin cancer.
Sleepless nights,
entire seasons
lost,
shades and curtains
drawn and closed,
a futile effort
to buffer the sun.
The inevitable
depression it
brings, locked
in the house
a prisoner of the
heat,
feeling I’ve failed
somehow as a
human being
because I can’t
endure it,
wanting to move
wanting to leave,
to flee
being me.

7/18/06