On the days when the sun was our enemy
and the heat had congealed to the consistency
of idleness, and the shade was just a darkened oven,

we lounged and did little else:
it wasn't worth the effort of swimming
through the heat to go anywhere or do anything,

so we sat. We listened to the buzz
of the sun and the sizzle of our sweat
evaporating, and this was our summer.

The music box melodies would come drifting
on the heat like an angel on the wind;
that was our one and only catalyst:

We ran and ran until we found
that ice cream truck, dragging through
the heat like a blind man through the desert.

Our salvation had arrived in the form of
firecrackers, fudgecicles, and snoopies;
we raced to lick it to the wood before

our hands were covered in the sticky mess,
trying not to waste a single drop
of that frozen childhood. It was impossible:

No matter who fast we ate, no matter
how much brain-freeze we caused ourselves,
that childhood always melted too quickly;

It never did last long in that summer heat.

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