Margaret Hitch

Michigan
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July Heat Wave

Too hot to move
Absolutely sweltering
A pregnant lady gets out of a truck across the street.

I’m trying to focus on my feet
And how good the concrete feels under them,
but I think I may be falling.
Surely, the earth is spinning and i’m just riding the rock,
A surfer on creaky knees.

The paint is peeling at the park.
Mold is growing in the cracks.
Everywhere, everything sweating -
The lights flickering on
look purple for a moment,
then blue -

I’m watching you balance two basketballs,
one on top of the other
and thinking of your legs in a dream -
It was February, and you were wearing a dress.
It's as simple as that.

You try to escape reality
By looking at your ring
I hear it jangling,
See your big thumb spinning-
glimmering in the dark.

A kid waves to me from out of the truck
and I wave back.
Another kid is crying,
They say
See that girl over there?

But I could be anything.
I could be the hero to your hero’s hero.
I could paint my hair black like Ozzy Osbourne
to fit in, on the other side of the Pacific.

What do I expect?
Trains. Hopefully, strange delays.
Wonderful spectacle oranges filtering in on some afternoons -

Will I learn?
To tame my love
into fitting into the cracks of everything?
To fill my body with emptiness?
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