Noonday Heat
That kind of sepia cloak. Stagnation. Gold hanging heavy in the air, and Slickening skin with nacreous beads Which pool, run down their navels, Their four sets of shoes forsaken, On the lakeside with the rest of their kit. Grecian repose. Cyanotype linen Lapping at dock pilings and loose limbs. Part bulrush to watch their dozing To the cicada’s beseeching croons, Chests heaving great suspires- So many sandbags settling, Yet, the gamy foreman rouses. Sits up. Lucky strike in his cracked lips. Charcoals his lily-white, billows like Zephyr on the face of his comrade Spluttering like a 70s cutlass. Laughter peals for the golden hind, For he’s that kind of chryselephantine One can’t begrudge. He atones, Peach of Hesperides, of redress, Offered and accepted, fuzz thumbed Skin caught between pearls and parted, Nectar seeping from chin to midriff Drying sticky on skin in the swelter. O syrup, how I hunger for your Sweetness. How you glaze the rind, Midasian – how I long to be gilt, Take deep, chilled gulps of life. But leagues sunder, and vulgar Reflections ripple. Pond scum. Scales submerge before I’m hoaxed.