Sonora

When you’re not melting into the sidewalk,

You’re burning in the sunlight.

Cooking savory eggs and bacon on the sidewalk

While the cookies bake on the dashboard.

Ninety-six degrees in the shade,

Feels like ice compared to the summer sun

While heavy rains sting the face,

Like a shower of warm needles.

Petrichor fills the nostrils,

And brings a promise of rain,

While mountains hold back,

Dark rain-dense clouds.

Cicadas scream in the rows of mesquite trees,

Signaling the coming of another dry summer.

Haboobs walling off the horizon,

And clouding the city and the suburbs.

A city shrouded in the darkness of the dirt,

While it bakes in the scorching sunlight.

Innocent patrons fighting for survival,

In the burning oven that they all call home.