FADE IN:
In this world, it’s 4PM nearly always, and a woman sits on her stoop with an iced tea. These, your gut tells you, are the dog days of summer.
My vision switches from digital to film whenever that phrase floats into my mind. Maybe it’s the heat, or an overactive imagination, but suddenly there’s a spot of film grain and the sunshine grows heavy, as if it’s becoming a character of its own.
There’s a constant buzzing in my apartment, on account of the flies. They’re finding their way in through cracks I cannot locate, landing on my things, and challenging me with a moral dilemma: to swat them, or to let them squat here.
I swat. I don’t feel great about it, but I swat.
And the sweat—I tug on my dress, just below where my cotton bra hits my sternum. Who needs new accessories when you can just develop new characteristics instead?
This heat, I’ll argue, is as close to contemplative as we can get in a summer desert. These blooming seasons always felt too chipper to write poetry in; but this year’s weather weighs differently. 86 and sunny can be just as morose as 45 and rainy, as long as the city snoozes a bit underneath its golden blanket. As long as the only cars that pass on a quiet street are blaring Celine Dion and then mariachi music and then, of course, there’s the silent BMW with a massive brown poodle drooling out the side window.
The waves of sound and silence tell a singular story: that it is summer in the city, and no one else knows what to do with themselves, either.
This week, I’m sitting at my grandfather’s typewriter by the AC, with my fly swatter, and typing up tiny poems on 3x5 notecards. It just feels nice. I haven’t figured out how to properly install the correction tape, so all of my errors just get to live on the page.
Here is one:
Next Steps: Drink a glass of water, and remember to balance your stoop-sitting with grass-sitting, for optimum health.