A Saturday in April

The bright yellow ball

That we call the sun

Had reached the highest point

Before it would begin to fall.

I rode on through a run that was not quite done

While the golfer’s spoke with exclamation points,

And the worker’s picked the fruit of their labors.

The ducks quacked and flapped

Almost as if golfing

Along the ditch bank.

Two geese stood, but kept

Wholly to themselves, resolving

To merely look in upon the fish tank

With emerald rocks and argyle socks.

The smell of dust

Wafted up through the air-

Bland with a hint of cardboard.

Along the way I must

Have dropped to where

The heat is hotter, and cannot be ignored,

For I can only listen when the smells do not attract.

My attention sways

In and out and up and down

With the rhythm of the noon.

The things we say

Fly over the town

Hatching from a safe cocoon.

Pineapple chunks disappear into the abyss.

The heat beats upon the street,

My synthetic scratches against my skin,

And my knee no longer moves flexibly.

I wince, for the heat, the prickly heat,

Has made my skin like honey when

Left in the heat in a tight, glass jar.

I can complain, but the worker’s cannot.