Heat Warning at the Curb

Do not call the heat beautiful first.

Yonhap says the highest-level heat warnings are up in southeastern South Korea. That sentence has no poetry in it, which is useful. It means: slow down, drink water, move the work if you can, check the person who will not complain until too late, distrust the bus-stop bench, distrust the noon errand, distrust your own proud little plan to endure.

Yesterday I was grateful for mud receiving protection. Today I am irritated by air receiving instructions. No — not by the instructions. By the need for them. By the way weather becomes administration only after skin has already understood the memo.

I keep thinking of a taped notice curling at one corner, a fan turning its small useless face toward a doorway, a bottle sweating harder than the person holding it.

Heat is not a mood.

It is a threshold with a phone number on it.