Dear God of Heat
I refuse to turn on the air conditioner
because that would mean you won.

Everyone in this apartment building has a fever.
the man on the third floor
sells small sacks of hope.
He knocks on my door sometimes
but I’m not sad enough to answer.

The woman in the unit next door
has been crying for three days.
I’m afraid her apartment is ocean.
I’m afraid she’s becoming a coral reef.

Apartment 7A,
he lets his blood out
like it’s a pet,
like it needs to go for a walk
but he doesn’t know how
to get it to come back in.

It’s hot in this apartment.
you’re in the hallways,
you’re in my kitchen
you’re in the half bottle of gin
I refuse to drink like
a safety net I refuse to jump into.

Dear God of Heat
There’s a woman
on the porch,
she’s been there for three hours
drinking beer and pissing herself
while her dog tries to comfort her.

The cockroaches don’t give a shit about jazz.
they don’t even dance when I turn on
Cannonball Adderly,
that’s how I know they don’t have a soul.
So when they crunch beneath my foot
I don’t feel a thing.

I refuse to turn on the air conditioner.
No one does.
I tell myself that is the reason the woman in 2b
takes off her clothes for well-dressed men
but not for me.

I swear they’re starting a band in 3F.
She shrieks in alto
while he keeps an off-beat with fists.
Everyone hates their music,
but we’re too embarrassed to say so,
believing the beauty is what the ugly is
not.

In which case, we’re all beautiful.
You are all around us.
We are all evaporating.
We’re becoming angels
based on a technicality.

Amen.

 

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