The summer has been mercurial & flagrant. Nothing feels particularly severe but the power lines have been melting, & the roads splitting, & the cooling centers filled. Without metaphor, Portland (& the surrounding region) has been burning up. Desert temperatures in a river valley. Midnight boils. Yet, when the loose embers from my first post-club cigarette hit my exposed inner thigh, I moan. One of my gay dads across town makes sure I’m surviving the heat & I underestimated his care. Not even Southern California climatization readied me for this disastrous heatwave.
Will our history books be honest about our failings. Ours meaning them. Them being the select few uber-wealthy propagandists telling us it’s all our fault for the Manhattan-sized trash pile in the ocean or the imminent extinction of bees. I’ve lost anxiety around certain kinds of punctuality but as a child of faith, the on-time is real. I’ll come when I need to. I’ll be when it’s best. How apocalyptic?
The solstice was prologued with the hanging man but now we are in the arc of the foolish coin. Material manifestations. Return to reliable structures. An atonal knocking that seeks rhythms. Who knew I could melt into submission on the second hottest day of the year with the physics of air-conditioned biology? I find a pocket of cool with an old acquaintance turned new pleasure. Without hyperbole, the first man to touch me like he meant it in years. Of course, it’s not until the hottest day in the city I finally feel the heat at the root of my being. My Venusian self rams luxury from her mouth & forges gravity in heart palpitation. I didn’t know the counter meter could comingle so magically. All this a gift after a month of rage, of grief.
The first night of the heat dome (as reports called it) was my first night out since the start of the pandemic. The pro-economic protocols of socializing when touch is currency. The night was mostly a delight. The joy of bodies in motion, the squalor, of pent-up desire. I almost fought one man for touching one of my kids then resisting dismissal. A night of coincidences collides into coming spikes in heat, in passion & patience. Tending to my kids circumnavigating casual community misconduct. Seeing the serrated seams of the scene fray under the unbearable heat. When the wave passes, it’ll still be summer but the days will start receding again. The comfort of constant change on the horizon.
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