I look up and watch the cheery white clouds skimming by
like rowboats across the brilliant blue sky,
incongruously contrasting with the misery of the relentless rays of the sun
now set on broil.

The flowers are few and far between,
exhausted from the effort to stay alive,
while the usually cheery tomatoes
are struggling to keep up the pretense
that all is well.
The cucumbers are scraggly and yellow;
they’ve succumbed to the unending waves of blistering heat
and won’t be revived.

Even the pups barely manage several laps around the yard
before crashing onto the ground,
panting frantically.
My hound has decided he’s in a ‘50s movie
about the South,
where dogs would spend the afternoon
stretched out across the back porch
in a time when there was no air-conditioning,
only fans wheezily whirring,
and no one expected them to do anything but sleep.

I know I need to shake off the lethargy,
so I bring the dogs back inside,
into the blessed air-conditioning,
where they lap up water so loudly and melodramatically
it sounds like the kitchen has become a splash pool.
They sink onto the cool, hard floor,
don’t even pick up their heads when I reluctantly say good-bye.
Strapping on my water bottle,
I force my vociferously protesting body
to stop wimping out
so I can get in my 10,000 steps—
even if the world has become a firepit.


© by Nancy Machlis Rechtman.
Used with the author’s permission.