Heat

it is so hot, even the simple cotton sheet has become cumbersome. i cannot sleep alone, yet i cannot sleep next to you. you're body's heat nearly boils my blood, while the skin between my thighs sticks together like chewed bubble gum to the sole of a shoe. no cleavage exists to produce sweat in that particular crevasse, but still the humidity that rises from my skin is enough to cause sleeplessness among even the most wretched poor. it is reminiscent of the days i never spent in an italian kitchen, next to a brick oven, day in and day out. the old, haggard woman kneading dough with her fists, sitting in the corner, trying to shelter her leather skin from the sun. the open door is only an allusion to a cool breeze – something to trick the mind. instead, flies swim their way through the thick air, looking for their next meal. the child wearing an apron stands in front of the open flames, keeping his discerning eye trained on the baking pies. sweat drips from the child's forehead, his underarms stained yellow from all his days laboring in monotony. but the leather woman sitting with her back to the door, and her sparsely toothed gums gnawing at her lower lip – or what is left of it – sits contently as if she has known no other way. the wrinkles on her skin tell of days she has spent in the sun, no doubt with a lover. the woman and her man making love in the swallowing heat, as if there could be nothing more passionate, more consuming than mingling one's well deserved sweat with the other's. whether in a windowless room or out in the open, among the throng of those absorbed with their own misery, the heat is the same.

Make Love in that room or out on that street! Make Love while you sweat – while your heart beats! Do it for the ecstasy, do it to distract, do it for the reasons you usually lack!

Every heat wave turns water into nothing more than dust that resembles golden waves. Learn to Live in this heat, learn to make Love in this heat, learn to Sleep in this heat. It is here to stay.