Summer

It tortures me, this summer heat.

I prefer the fires down below,

Under this filthy world,

where it’s dark enough to feel

instead of see.

Up here, they pluck my blossoms,

Roses, lilies, peonies, hydrangeas, orchids, daisies, gardenia, camellia, iris.

Arranging them just so,

Fashioning shrouds

to prepare girls

For my lover.

Do they think they fool you

With these stupid blooms,

the ghosts of my scent?

Could you mistake

these cold, lifeless shapes and colors

For the living flame that is me?

Can you not distinguish

The velvet melting inside me

From a plucked petal?

Oh, this wretched heat.

Helios torments me, sending fire

From the sky to remind me

Of your absence.

This puny mockery

of the fire that burns in me for you,

dragging some weak star

behind his ridiculous chariot,

Mortals singing songs, dancing

in silly circles, my mother

waving her arms with wheat.

I slip into the shade of a laurel tree,

beg Daphne to share her secret

so I, too, can freeze into freedom.

Her silence pervades me, taunts me,

knowing, threatening

to rat me out to Zeus,

who would no doubt

hurl some crooked thunderbolt

in my general direction.