Under the Sun

The languor of summer days, a drop of sweat.
Hit the napkin, plop on the word “miss.” It’s
Mezcal time here, and I plop you. I feel as if
I can almost not fit in my skin anymore. This
heat, hellacious.  I’m slipping right out of it,
shedding in the humidity, this slow roast time
of bathing, basting in temperatures above my
body heat. Am I cooler on the inside than the out?
Hard to stomach, how I plop you terribly. Terrible,
of course, that no one mails napkins to people
anymore. They do, didn’t they? So sad, I would
put a stamp on this, stagger to a mailbox, pop it
in the post to you. This is some draft of a poem,
don’t you see? Sip Mezcal in the swelter of wavy
lines, my eyes following them, rising to the sky,
ending at the blue umbrella’s edge, neat, no ice,
how my head’s swimming memories of you. I plop
you so much I might scream, the sound blasting
out and up like heat rising, because I plop you so.
Is it a poem? When do you know if it’s a poem?
I can’t answer that question. Mezcal brain won’t.
The sun. And the bull. It’s all bull anyway. What’s
a poem? What’s not? Love and loss under the sun.
Under the volcano, I fold you, pocket you, stagger
into the hot, wonder wishing, do you plop me too?