Humid

The night ended in smoke.

Sleepwalking fumes 
          rolled over the park,
perambulated in groggy circles,
then got stuck in the tree branches
       where they hung as thick
as melting duck fat.

Around eleven in the morning
           the sky began to baste itself;
you could smell it simmering
on the edge of a backburning brink
   as it grilled a too torpid air.
It was sweet in the mouth at first
     then it fire-licked wet ears
and slippery toes.
Skeletal strings unwound.

 Mind-sweat began to pour,
    drowning-out hope of any ease,
    thoughts flopped to the earth
stewing amid overheated bubbles,
Microbes leached through
                               oily eyebrows.

Ohio just can’t get its weather right;
some nights merely pre-heat the day,
daylight pants through aphid snouts
             and brown stems,
or bulges lungs with its ballooning fevers.

if the next passer-by 
gleefully remarks:
           ‘what a lovely day’
                       they will be cursed politely
with a gorgon stare,
                       then a thin, and crispy leer.

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