Humidity

In the thick air off the hungry green corn
I wobble up the path, in rivers of sweat,
by the swelling mushrooms on the stump
and the thump of distant shotguns,
bursting like aneurisms
in the fat body of the park.

I started running in the exodus of Friday afternoon,
light,  the bonds of work trailing behind,
parting clouds like a jet,
a prime number in a mist of division,
present and accounted for,
borne on the steed of effort,
drawn tight as a kite,
matched to my charge.

But by the inclination of degrees
I was enveloped
in the daughter of fire and water
and her languid majesty.
She bends time and wrings out space,
she is hallucination,
she pulls the head into the intestines,
she makes eyes to grow on the dead.

My heart took its place,
an oar on a canoe in the river,
my muscles but so many fish,
and my perspective itself was removed,
still quivering, for her supplication.