Heat

I’ve pitched hay
half-mad with
chaff stuck between creases
and under sleeves

picked blackberries through
thorns hanging on
barbed wire fences
bordering steamy meadows
seething with chiggers and mosquitoes

nailed sub-roof
three stories up
swinging a hammer
side by side with convicts
from the state farm

pulled slats of steamed-
dried wood from the
the bin of a veneer dryer
through merciless mind-numbed
endless summer days
counting down the redundant hours
in the trance of 103 degrees

but at this age
the stultifying oppressive
sodden days are an affront
to patience and endurance
as leaves slowly wilt and coil
in the boiling inferno choking
life from fragile tissue
enduring the hell of transient existence