I am partial to poems
about family vacations, endless laughter,
sun shining down on the glistening pool.
Also the way cacti look down
onto the city, warm and dry.
Waitresses bringing water jugs pool side
do something for me too.
Even the moist droplets
where the water once sat
marked with muggy surfaces
quickly drying in the pounding fever …
Can you see my proclivity for the words
“warm” and “dry,” a diminutive tendency
in a world given often to the cold and wet?
You could try a loaf of bread right out of the oven,
communion in church.
People with the patience for tanning, well,
I am definitely one.
Overheated children crying for help,
how hopeless they seem.
If you send something about
a dripping icicle, I will be intrigued.
The general potency and behavior of humankind,
however, is hard for me to get my mind around.
Watch the boy blowing air which turns into smoke
in the frigid temperatures.
Instead, consider the quality time,
the jokes being told by your sister,
the heat radiating off your skin, or
the hot rocks that lay in the rough desert sand
in Tucson where we continue to visit today.
Everywhere you look,
sweaty smiles and glowing eyes.