Thermostats may be God's greatest gift to humanity

I hate sweating.

Let the Georgian heat squeeze drops

Off my brow and into the air

Where they disappear in a swirl of odor.

Lungs heaving in butterfly strokes,

Up and down,

Where they lodge with the words

I can’t say in my mouth.

I miss snow.

The silent crunch of each flake

And the rustle of a log

Crackling in a fireplace.

I miss baggy clothes, too.

Hiding my body in rags was never as easy

As it was in the north,

Where the cold hid itself each summer.

Here I am on display.

Tight trousers, tight shirts, tight belts.

Tight fuckin’ everything.

Tight lips, too.

Sure, the southern drawl

Evokes images of sweet tea,

Cotton fields,

The World of Coke and disappointment.

But each “Bless your heart”

Or Peachtree Road/Street/Avenue

Is a way to avoid saying

What northerners care too much to not say.

That we are all people

And that the sun’s baked radiance

Has cooked the South into briquettes

And the people into ash outlines of themselves.

So when you bump into someone oozing body odor,

And wringing the humidity from their clothes,

With a sigh of relief when the A/C kicks in

Remember that.

That we hide our words with sugar

While they protect theirs with daggers.

And both can be right.

Just depends on the temperature, I guess.