This poem reflects on the strange intimacy of high summer heat, when even hose water meant for relief arrives already warmed by the day.
At first it runs with garden chill,
a buried cool from shaded ground,
then slowly, from the sunlit coil,
the water changes in the hand.
It comes now almost bathlike,
soft heat released from rubber loops,
as if the day had found a way,
to enter even what should cool.
The dust goes dark beneath the stream,
the boards give back a dampened shine,
and every small accustomed thing,
feels altered by the weight of noon.
So much of high summer lives here,
not only in blaze, but in seep,
the heat moving into hose and skin,
until the whole world feels sun kept.