The Words for Hot
The roosters
call morning
from house to house, light takes the hills
until the valley's only mist
hangs back
in the landscape's corners.
All night the cold worried my feet.
I dreamed of beaches,
lay awake
inventing shapes to trap
my own blood heat,
but found no way to catch
the afternoon
sizzle in paving stones,
the hiss from whitewashed walls. A bone-
ache chill replaced them. This morning
I crave all
the names for hot
that are not another body--
cauldron, scorch, volcano, August, roast
sirocco.
I know there are
not enough various heats in this
one flesh to match the dazzled brick.
