Dies Caniculares

Image borrowed from Bing

Dies Caniculares

The solar demigods smiled as
the stifling, sultry, sweat-smeared
king of dog days arrived;
when triple digits soared arrogantly,
when house cats and dogs went mad,
when the ocean frothed like something rabid,
when fruit jars burst apart and juice soured,
when pet birds lie in a stupor
in the bottom of their brass cages,
when red rashes rose like hordes of chiggers,
devouring flesh from ankles to ear lobes, when
thirst could not be slacked, only teased, when
migraines inhabited cortical caverns, when
colons were agitated into their spin cycle, when
strong women broke out in fevers and vapors,
when kind men used bestial growling as
their only means of communication, when
children at play became suddenly hysterical,
when birds flew blindly into windows and walls,
when house flies procreated in your pudding,
when foxes appeared in packs from the shadows,
when even great eagles flew hungry pushed
ever higher by voracious thermals;

and that night when it cooled down to a hundred,
when Sirius blazed on the crown of Canus Major,
sleep became illusive, a coy specter hiding
in the steamy folds of sweltering sheets, forcing
people to rise and prowl their premises, shaking
with alacrity, barely comprehending that sleep
was not their ally, for it might mask something evil
in the broom closet, underneath the stairs,
in the tool shed, the guest room, the basement,
or even an undiscovered heat demon
existing in the ethereal aura of who
they once believed they were; something
blood red, coiled, and anxious to bolt.

Glenn Buttkus

July 2011

Listed as #42 over on Magpie Tales 75

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