August 2019
Summer summer summer. It hummed on the tongue slower in the heat.
It was the summer three dogs died after drinking lake water. Algae filmed the stagnant shallows, more green than blue. We kept fishing the stretches that still held water. He spotted a copperhead in the shallows. It lifted its head and length of body, slicing an S across the glassy top toward us.
On the way out, a man with a backpack passed us on the trail, his pupils wide in the shade. We told him there was a snake in the water. He nodded and kept going.
For days I checked the local reports. Not for snakes. For a heavy shape snagged where the concrete flares at Bull Creek. Nothing showed up. The heat kept stacking.
Everything multiplied that month. The water stood still and grew thick, the color shifting from bottle glass to pea soup. Reports kept coming from other states. More stagnant stories, more new alerts. New minimalism documentaries, new tiny houses, new subscriptions, new terrors, new pains, new rages, new fears, new precautions, new friends, new lives, new upon new.
A man was arrested after hiding a rifle in the park outside of town. A journalist student walking her dog called it in. Nights carried striped primary colors, whirring rotors. The trains even blared more. The same footage kept returning, parking lot light and tape and circles over faces.
Lust, hot and speedy, pricked me in quick rushes all over the city. I slept light and kept my keys on me. Summer summer summer. It hummed on the tongue slower in the heat. That summer, it hung in the air. The line ticked once and went still.
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