The sun is relentless,
blinding as a candy striper in the cancer ward.
Light hurls off stucco storefronts and glints
from the sidewalk mica, triggering
retinal pyrotechnics of painful ferocity.
What little juice you have left
won’t salve your burning throat, and
your skin, once pale as the clerical collar,
turns a florid peat fire red.
In Singapore, Manila, and L.A.,
someone gets an idea, rises up for the kill,
then falls back, seeking merciful shade
and a long cool drink.
Battles are fought and forgotten
in the heat of many moments,
all of which last a moment too long.
Still, the brain and heart are pliable organs.
The mind can wrestle a cartographic maze,
feed on foreign streetscapes and settlements.
And the heart lunges at variety, and crapshoot
with the aberrant and unknown.
A new puzzle. A new suitor.
But the body cannot tell a lie,
and it may refuse to put down roots,
to grip and fasten, to burrow deeper,
to even drink of this alien and untasted potion—
a wild mixture of sandstorm and cold space.