Amid the Reek of Rotting Seaweed from the Indian River

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

We know a certain awe when summer comes,

When hot months come with sweat and heat among

The trunks, the limbs and leaves.  Exhaustion thrums

Through shores’ accomplices.  The Devil’s tongue

Licks all around.  Brochures about the state

Of Florida omit the mention of

Humidity as strangling in its hate

Of humans with its choking leather shove

Against the windpipe.  Armpits all around

Feel love from Satan as hairs stream away

With stench.  Humidity and damp have frowned

Their triumph with discomfort in their sway.

  A reverence for the power of steam swells out

    From lolling hearts.  They barely flop to pout.

© Phillip Whidden