Ninety degrees in the shade – but whoever gets to stay there?
Hot rocks radiate the illusion of winter won’t touch us here.
Lascivious oils perfume the air, hot from the pines
and my canteen looks dirty and dented. No plastic water bottle
for me, just dampened canvas wicking away heat,
cold water inside; no stale beer (that’s for Sunday after
Saturday’s party.) It’s a quarter after the lunch break
and no one can pull themselves out of the air conditioned crummy.
“Let’s check the map again,” someone says, and we burn
another quarter hour of freon on someone else’s dime.
“We sweated enough today. Tomorrow we’ll go fight fire.”
Beer and barbecue and women await on the next holiday with pay.
