Orrin Schwab's poem turns a hot summer city into a body. From the first lines, the city "sweated," and the tar and cement seem to drip. Trucks make the bridges creak, fumes drift off the river, and steel and stone are stained with carbon. It's a grimy, heavy picture, and the speaker doesn't look away from it.
Yet the turn comes with "but the city was alive." Here the city becomes an organism, squirming in its own perspiration, and even conversation seems salty and sticky, a "saline discourse." The speaker doesn't seem to hate this place so much as observe it closely, with a mix of discomfort and fascination.
The mood is sultry, sluggish and a little uneasy. Short, concrete images of smoke, sweat and noise pile up, and the night at the end "sank into the sidewalks," moving slowly and furtively. Even darkness brings no relief. The heat lingers, and the city keeps living inside it.