Air Conditioner
Heat-snuffing dragon
of hot-house nights.
How soundly the midnight hum
of your metal machinery
dumbs down the evergreen Eden
of my flowering past
when cubes of ice
conspired against the fire
of the melting sun,
and popsicles made it nice
to smelt in the withering heat
while humid flights of fancy
overdosed on the hormonal rush
of summer’s first coming.
Excuse me if I now sit out
those white-noise surges
of relief with watt-not urges
riding astride the sea breeze
of memories. They squeeze friezes
through my window.
Scenes of stalking grass
harnessed by a blitz
of sassy mosquitoes
bombarded by pesticides
that filled the air
like perfume in the hair
of languid afternoons.
I’ve done 7th inning stretches
with a wooden Breyer’s ice-cream spoon
that school-kids used to beat the heat,
before the advent
of your indiscreet electric storm.