July

the air smokes through the streets steamed in the sun the city, living on the far side of the lake takes the dark clouds off the prairie from that ruthless god who burns pavement and milky white skin

shaded blocks of red brick are fine in the dense sweat of late afternoon after the ice and wind of three seasons now the sky with its hot belt brings the city back

the industrial scraped of rust bares itself to the streets cauterized by the urbane laid to the purview of the highways artifacts to the deep muscle of this century in solitude praying to the digital photons of the next

in the heat the girls strip to their figures tantalizing the eyes of the male caught in his blood in the -physiology of his hormones pounding his frame

the city touches the sky with steel etchings in the language of the future sending furtive echoes in the open air they return unanswered

but the old neighborhoods live in the steamy air with the hot talk of the summer vapor sifting through the streets churning sleeping in the long deep mounds of the night dreaming in the soft breezes of the morning dying with the first shadows of the sun touching that cool virgin morning air again reborn